Summer 2003 was man time for Dizzee Rascal. On July 7, hours before a show in the Mediterranean resort of Ayia Napa, the MC/producer/DJ from East London’s blighted projects was stabbed six times (arrest warrants were issued for two associates of beef-sizzling garage-rap posse So Solid Crew). On July 21, his debut album, Boy in Da Corner, was released in the U.K.; on September 9, the album won the prestigious Mercury Music Prize, beating out rock giants Coldplay and Radiohead. A few days later, the kid known to his mom as Dylan Mills turned 19.

 

Dizzee Rascal is a sloe-eyed, whip-tongued, slang-crunching revolution in British street sounds, occupying a space between the London underworld of Charles Dickens, the thug-poet realism of Tupac Shakur, and the bleeding-edge beats of U.K. stars the Streets and Ms. Dynamite. The raps on Boy in Da Corner -- when discernible through a cacophony of squawks, blurts, car alarms, sirens, and Rascal's cockney-gangsta flow -- spin tales of sex, violence, and strife at the bottom of the English class ladder. "As I was growing up, I had a lot of problems," Rascal says, alluding to a criminal record and an aborted education. "But the flip side is that channeling it made the music work. It's a reflection of my surroundings. it's me sitting on the street corner, watching life go by."