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Dizzee Rascal, a 19-year-old east London garage MC, has won the 2003
Mercury Music Prize.
"My teachers all called me rascal," Dylan Mills has said,
explaining the name Dizzee Rascal - which is now known across the
country after his Mercury win.Rascal, who grew up in Bow, east London,
was raised by a single mother on a council estate.He was so much of
a rascal that he was excluded from every class except music and expelled
four times.But he began rapping in the UK garage style - the style
dominant on many inner city streets - and one teacher encouraged him
to develop his musical talents.According to Rascal himself, the music
stopped him drifting into crime like many others on his estate. Rascal
is not ashamed to admit that money motivates him and is the latest
in a line of British stars to have emerged from the urban scene. Like
thousands of teenagers across the UK, he began making music in his
bedroom with friends, using whatever technology he could lay his hands
on.I Luv U was then given a full release, reaching number 29 in the
UK chart, followed by Fix Up, Look Sharp, which went to number 17
in August. BBC Radio 1 DJ Zane Low praised the rapper for his album
at the Mercury ceremony. Rascal has not escaped the violence of the
UK garage scene - he has just recovered from being stabbed in the
Cypriot garage resort of Ayia Napa. The incident was said to have
arisen out of a squabble within the music scene on the island. But
the incident has not hurt his music career, and he is now working
on a new album. |
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