Summer’s more or less over in the UK – that’s what happens when you reach September, unfortunately – and true to type, grime’s at war again.

This time, however, it’s the producers that are clashing for a change. Bless Beats, a Bow producer best known for the beat to Wiley’s ‘Wearing my Rolex’, started things off, addressing a selection of grime producers on Twitter and posting a track titled ‘Wardub’. To be honest, the track’s nothing special – it sounds like one of a hundred beats that Wiley was riding around 2006/7 – but it’s prompted half of the grime establishment to consider responses, which can only be a good thing.

As far as we can tell, Shizznit was the first to respond, with a track that called out various producers – Jammer, Preditah [above], Rude Kid, Teddy Music etc – via their audio tattoos over a sub-heavy beat that samples the melody from Wiley’s ‘Where’s My Brother’. Next came Preditah, with a beat that’s since been deleted (dude, come on), and the ever-underrated Nocturnal, who navigated a bunch of samples from Top Boy and Kano and Benga’s ‘Forefather’ on a beat that he claimed was “a quick one”, but banged a lot harder than Bless Beats and Shizznit’s.

Since then, a batch of other grime producers have thrown their keys in the bowl, from established names like Wiley, JME, Footsie, Rapid and Jammer to up-and-comers like Splurt Diablo and Flava D. Preditah’s even got back involved with a refix of Footsie’s ‘Spookhouse’. Helpfully, Grimeforum have compiled a Soundcloud playlist of the war dubs so far – check it below.

Update: You can now hear war dubs from Plastician, Spooky, Deeco, Splurt Diablo (again) and more below.

So who gets involved next? You can read Joe Moynihan’s recent feature on grime’s new wave of producers here.



