Music Spotlight by Daragh Mulligan

Dizzee Rascal- Maths and English

XL Records

In the mid 80s my sister emigrated to London. As a fresh faced teenager I loved my trips over to see her. It allowed me to buy records that I couldn't get over here and bring them back to play at our school disco. As a result, the learned halls of the Tech in Dundrum rocked with the beats and rhymes of Doug E Fresh in 1984, which was the year that Dylan Mills was born in London.

Fast forward 16 years: Dylan is now named Dizzie Rascal and is a former member of the Roll Deep crew, who released a few small issue singles and MC-ed on pirate radio stations and at organised raves.

After a row with Roll Deep collective head, Richard 'Wylie' Cowie, Dizzie decided to go solo. Here's where his story really begins.

April 2003 sees Dizzee's first album Boy in Da Corner released to critical acclaim, so much so it wins him the prestigious Mercury Music Award.

However, the year finishes in near tragedy when Dizzee is stabbed five times after a gig in Ayia Napa, Cyprus, by all accounts because of one of those pointless rap feuds. May 2004 and Dizzee's second album is unleashed. Showtime and more decent chart positions ensue. He wins the NME Award for Innovation. This is a massive achievement for a rap artist considering NME would be a predominantly rock publication. The end of the year sees Dizzee's involvement in the sacrilegious Band Aid 20's awful remake of Do They Know It's Christmas.

June 2007 and Dizzee is about to release his latest effort Maths and English, a title that apparently relates to his own take on music: "The beats are the Maths and the English is the lyrics."

On first listen I was impressed with the production on this album. The beats and hooks were pretty decent and I was extremely impressed with the cleverness of some of the guest appearances- Alex Turner from Arctic Monkeys and Lilly Allen for a start!

It seems that between him and his writing partner DJ Semtex, they've taken time to craft the music and to try and span as many genres as possible, Old Skool, rave, jungle and even rock with big guitar riffs (Sirens) and musically they all sound great.

But on further listens, the lyrics reveal a sorry tale, a tale where a rap artist defines how good he his by telling us all how much money and stuff he has in Bubbles & Hardback Industry.

He reminds us "he's still a bad boy from a council flats estate" in Temptation and informs us "I'm the baddest and bestest rapper" in Wanna Be... that's enough because it's depressingly predictable.

It's annoying because I really want to like this album and this album could have been brilliant if he just ditched the "Gangsta" stereotype and made an effort to write some intelligent lyrics instead of this tired formula.

Expect to hear this being blasted out of every Boyracer's souped up motor come mid-July. Buy this if you like – Decent rap beats and are able to ignore the awful lyrics.

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