This is the same Deja Vú studio as the Wiley & Lethal B clash, but it’s before that – before Dizzee was big, before he got stabbed in Ayia Napa, before he & Wiley fell out. Before Crazy Titch got sent down as well, obviously. If you know about grime from this time then you know that Titch was a volatile MC at the best of times, but he really did hate Dizzee: you know it’s bad when someone’s making videos for war dubs (not that I can find it on YouTube but there was one, I promise). Anyway, this is a really great set throughout. It came out on DVD, and it’s basically an extended Nasty Crew & Roll Deep set for large portions, albeit with a few pointless MCs popping up every now and again. You can watch the whole thing here. The Dizzee Vs Titch thing comes at the end of the DVD, and it’s probably one of the most tense moments on a set where shotguns aren’t involved (more on that later). There’s no real winner in this clash, just some dead air and a lot of shouting.

The Muskateers Incident

There’s not really much to this in terms of actually being able to hear it – I can’t find the set online, although it is on a hard drive somewhere – but in terms of its relevance to grime and pirate radio, it’d be churlish to ignore it. In my opinion, Muskateers were a truly terrible crew. I do rate Lady Fury to an extent, but in terms of their relevance, it’s negligible. At this point (late April 2004), all the biggest grime crews were on Deja Vú, largely due to Diesle – now an MC, but at this point the DJ for East Connection – and effectively, Muskateers were under the assumption that they were being slighted by not being included on the station. In their infinite wisdom, they – allegedly – turned up at Deja during a largely forgettable East Connection set with a shotgun and attempted to threaten their way into a set. You can hear this happening at the end of this recording (literally the last few seconds). It was this incident that took grime off Deja for about five years, bar one last hurrah a couple of weeks later on May 10th. (Incidentally, two of legitimately the best sets ever happened that day from Nasty Crew and the Essentials.)

“Ask Carlos!”