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Boy In Da Corner
by Dizzee Rascal

Dizzee Rascal reviews
Critic Score
Metascore: 92 Metascore out of 100
User Score  
9.1 out of 10
based on 28 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
based on 118 votes
Read user comments
Rate this album

This is the debut disc for the 18-year-old London-based rapper (born Dylan Mills), who has been heralded by (among others) Uncut magazine as "good as any MC currently active on Earth."

LABEL: Matador / XL
RELEASE DATE: 20 January 2004
DISCS: 1 disc
GENRE(S): Rap, Electronic

NOTES: Original UK release 21 July 2003 on XL.


What The Critics Said

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100
PopMatters
It is an album that can be loved as both an achievement and an experience, a document and a revelation; it is simultaneously a problem to be solved and a spectacle to simply witness.
Read Full Review
100
Junkmedia
Corner's gutter low ends, amphetamine drum programming, and Dizzee's cockney slang-spitting place this record among rap's paradigmatic moments.
Read Full Review
100
Uncut
The best rapper this country's ever produced, period.... Next to Dizzee Rascal everybody looks pale, uninteresting and irrelevant. [Sep 2003, p.98]
100
Mojo
Brilliantly original. [Aug 2003, p.106]
100
The Guardian
The most original and exciting artist to emerge from dance music in a decade.
Read Full Review
96
Stylus Magazine
Most of Boy in Da Corner's most compelling moments come from this uneasy interaction between irrational youth and ultra-rational mechanized society.
Read Full Review
94
Pitchfork
Dizzee's despairing wail, focused anger, and cutting sonics places him on the front lines in the battle against a stultifying Britain, just as Pete Townshend, Johnny Rotten, and Morrissey have been in the past.
Read Full Review
91
Spin
The flow is straight-up alien: chilled-out and frantic at the same time, slightly breathless. [Feb 2004, p.95]
91
Village Voice (Consumer Guide)
His adolescent gulps and yowls are street-Brit with a Jamaican liquidity, as lean, eccentric, and arresting as the beats.
Read Full Review
91
E! Online
It's as gripping as N.W.A.'s groundbreaking Straight Outta Compton.
Read Full Review
90
New Musical Express
One of the most assured debut albums of the last five years.
Read Full Review
90
Splendid
If Boy In Da Corner marks the beginning of distinctly British hip-hop, the genre's standards are already impressively high.
Read Full Review
90
Neumu.net
Boy in da Corner defies genre in a defiant manner, refusing to be defined, refusing, even, to be dismissed.
Read Full Review
90
The Onion (A.V. Club)
It all makes for a bleak spread, but Rascal rises up as a singular musical presence too brimming and perceptive to let the coarse world around him pass by untouched.
Read Full Review
90
All Music Guide
Startling, tirelessly powerful, and full of unlimited dimensions.
Read Full Review
90
Village Voice
When Dizzee thinks very deeply--worrying about growing up, about those around him who won't grow up, about dying before he grows up--he sounds like, what else can we call it, the real thing.
Read Full Review
88
Los Angeles Times
A dance syncretism made of menacing beats skittering from dark dancehall to mashed-up jungle, super-warped bass frequencies, stark anti-hooks, and a voice that is the most authentic to emerge in years. [18 Jan 2004]
84
ShakingThrough.net
One of the most refreshing hip-hop records in quite some time.
Read Full Review
80
CultureDose.net
On a level of pure listening enjoyment, Boy In Da Corner isn't quite an Original Pirate Material; but it does succeed in establishing that Dizzee Rascal deserves a place right at the forefront of the UK Urban movement.
Read Full Review
80
Blender
His hard-edged, dance-inflected debut makes East London sound like the new Dirty South. [Jan 2004, p.108]
80
Launch.com
He hasn’t made a great album, but even Tupac never managed that; the bombed-out landscape of Boy In Da Corner burns instead with all the anger, confusion and messed-up desperation of youth.
Read Full Review
80
Rolling Stone
If you want a vision of the future of hip-hop and techno, get this record.
Read Full Review
80
Billboard
Adventurous listeners are in for a treat.
Read Full Review
80
Dot Music
Delivering his lyrics in a breathless barrage, 'Boy In Da Corner' packs the energy flash of London MCing into its grooves and for that alone it deserves attention.
Read Full Review
75
Entertainment Weekly
One of the strangest, bumpiest musical journeys we're likely to experience on record this year. [16 Jan 2004, p.68]
70
Playlouder
Not much here is too likely to blow up on the airwaves... it's too dirty, too ugly, too hard, and too Real.
Read Full Review
70
Q Magazine
[A] strikingly stark and innovative debut. [Sep 2003, p.102]
70
Urb
Dizzee's production style is impressive.... His flow is urgent and coherent. [Mar 2004, p.109]

What Our Users Said

Vote Now! The average user rating for this album is 9.1 (out of 10) based on 118 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

ash p gave it a0:
'o all you guys chattin bout hip hop or garage and tryin to rate it by those standards better shh hut yuh muh', 'sikkkkkkkk album bruv 'sittin here' is a bad tune big up all my blazers!!!' 'standard dis album is big out here. no long ting straight up and down big' - to quote a few, do you know how stupid you sound seriously!

ryan s. gave it a10:
sikkkkkkkk album bruv 'sittin here' is a bad tune big up all my blazers!!!

Dan A gave it a10:
An AMAZING album. Dizzee Rascal is a great artist and single handedly got me into the Grime genre.

natahn a gave it a10:
it is the best

Blah Blah gave it a10:
My favorite album of all time

Rachel xxx gave it a10:
well wat cn i sey except FKIN amazin!!!!this lad has so much talent lv im so much!!!!!!!keep it up Dizzy bbe xxxxx

Michael C gave it a10:
This is nearly an impossible listen to get all the way through in the first listen. You will simply be over-whelmed by all of it at first, but slowly it starts to make sense, and reveals itself as being original and smart. Even though I love the album as much as I do I have a hard time digesting it all in one listen, you'll know what I mean when you hear it. There isn't a dull track on the album, they are all special in a serperate way. Dizzee's crazy amounts of flows puts him up there with the likes up Eric B, Tupac, Snoop, and Biggy, it truly is an amazing album, even if you don't like hip/hop you should still get this, in what i've found the "rap heads" have had a harder time grasping this album than the "rap haters" have. Do It! is one of the greatest songs of all.

Read more user comments...

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