At the other extreme, it is favoured by inner city teens who appear to communicate entirely in an impenetrable mix of street slang and patois."ĭuring this period, Wiley occasionally referred to his music as "Eski", short for 'Eskibeat' – the name he initially gave to grime. lengthy essays are posted on issues as the differentiation between Humean and Kantian views of motivation in the lyrics of Bonnie Prince Billy. Alexis Petridis of The Guardian noted the "comically polarised" fanbase Wiley had accrued "At one extreme, its sonic experimentation has attracted the kind of people who run music blogs.
Reviews such as in Pitchfork Media made comparisons between Wiley and his previous labelmate Dizzee Rascal, who had achieved success with Boy in Da Corner the previous year. Singles from the album included, "Wot Do U Call It?" which mocked the various names given to his music, and "Pies”, which showed his humorous side. In 2004, Wiley released his debut album, ' Treddin' on Thin Ice' with his new label. The underground notoriety he achieved led to his being offered a recording deal with the legendary XL Recordings. From 2001, Wiley produced a slew of instrumental singles on his WileyKat Record label, the best known being "Eskimo", "Avalanche" and "Ice Rink". For a while there was no name for the genre he did more than anyone to create, but eventually the label "grime" was the one that stuck. Wiley’s vision saw him stripping the generic melodies and sickly harmonies out of garage music and developing the drums and basslines. Wiley went on to form the Roll Deep collective, which included Dizzee Rascal and Tinchy Stryder as MCs. Soon after, the crew disintegrated due to individual members having differing ideas of the direction the crew should take. In 2002 the collective achieved a top 40 hit with "Champagne Dance" God's Gift, Flow Dan and Riko joined soon after.
They achieved some success on the UKG scene but then decided to combine with rival crew Pay As U Go to become a "super crew," containing the Ladies Hit Squad members plus DJ Slimzee and MC's Major Ace and Plague. In 2000, Wiley joined with "The Hit Squad" garage crew with school friends DJ Target and MC Maxwell D. Wiley's earliest recordings date back to 1997, when he featured on pirate radio rapping over jungle beats. Since then he has straddled the mainstream and the underground, irritated and amazed people in equal measure and carved out a unique career path which he has more or less had to make up as he has gone along. He has made pioneering music in the fields of jungle, drum & bass and UK garage, but is best known as the originator and Godfather of Grime, the uniquely British take on rap music which roared out of east London in the early noughties.