Career
Experimenting with his decks and styles, he became an amateur DJ, making occasional appearances on a local pirate radio station. Aged 16, he self-produced his first single, "I Luv U." In 2002, he jointly formed the Roll Deep Crew, a 13-piece garage collective, with former school friends. Signed by the XL record label, he signed an additional solo deal.
During his early career, Dizzee worked with his mentor Wiley to create the song 'We Ain't Having It' (which never got released on any albums) and also rapped on some 'Sidewinder' recordings. He made some instrumentals including 'Go' and 'Ho' and 'Streetfighter' which used some music from a video game. Dizzee had an ongoing feud, from late 2002, with fellow popular underground Grime MC Crazy Titch, which began when a fight broke out between the pair during a set on the popular pirate radio station Deja Ju FM. The set which features many seminal early Grime artists was filmed, which was rare for the era, and has accumulated over a million views on YouTube and resulted in the two exchanging diss tracks. Since his incarceration on murder charges in 2005 Crazy Titch has said he no longer has any issues with Dizzee Rascal who has not since commented on the affair. There has been some suggestion, however, that the chorus of Dizzee Rascal's hit song Bonkers references Crazy Titch's incarceration.
After winning a Sidewinder Award for Best Newcomer MC in 2002, in June 2003 the re-recorded and re-produced by Jacob Freitt single I Luv U was released, becoming a Top 30 hit single.
Dizzee was a judge in the Sky1 show Must Be The Music.
Read more about this topic: Dizzee Rascal
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