Album: Lethal Bizzle <!-- none onestar twostar threestar fourstar fivestar -->

Against All Oddz, V

As the forthcoming compilation by DJ/producer Skitz confirms, there is plenty of homegrown UK hip-hop talent around, if you know where to look. A good strategy would be to avoid anything bearing the label "grime", if this debut from Lethal Bizzle is anything to go by. Frankly, it's a load of shizzle. Aside from Plasticman'smenacing synth-scape in "Against All Odds" and Sticky's engaging shuffle-twitch groove to "Slow", the backing tracks are routine affairs on which garage rhythms are yoked to half-hearted borrowings of old hip-hop gambits, such as the Kanye-style vocal samples on "Should Of Known" (sic). But it's Bizzle who's most at fault, either bigging himself up, gloating gracelessly about his sexual conquests, or whinging about his detractors - in other words, the navel-gazing solipsism that renders the grime scene of little concern to those not directly involved in it. Has Lethal, anything to say on any subject that might be of wider interest? It appears not. The closest he comes to deep thought is when he opens "Against All Odds" with his considered verdict that "Life - life is hard, man,". Just how hard is revealed by his revelation that when he was down, Lethal actually had to pay to get into gigs! I mean, how bad can things get?