Kyle Ellison will ghost you if you sleep on him
Grime as a product is a difficult sell by name and definition. Occasionally a tune will slip behind enemy lines as if by accident, but there’s rarely much logic to those that do. If anyone knows the secret to German Whip’s success then they’re smarter than me – Meridian Dan certainly doesn’t, and JME must be wondering why his most throwaway bars in years have landed him back in the UK Top 40. Still, before anyone has a chance to get too excited about a grime revival, Trim’s here to remind us why we shouldn’t bother.
That’s not a comment on quality – as anyone who’s been paying attention in recent years will happily confirm. In commercial terms, though, this music just wasn’t supposed to be packaged and sold to a mass audience. Trim knows this; the former Roll Deep emcee has been chewed, swallowed and spat out by the music industry enough times to know to do things for himself. His long-awaited debut album (not including 12 mixtapes) will arrive this year through his own imprint Secluded Area of Music – no features, no choruses. In grime, unfiltered is the only way to be.
The first single from Crisis positions Trimbal in the vending machine, right alongside a row of fruit pastilles and a lone KitKat Chunky. It’s been sitting there for months now, still in last year’s wrapper watching the new products as they come and go. A lesser emcee than Trim may too have been left behind, but his styles and concepts are continually sealed for freshness. “You need to think about buying one of each,” he hustles – selling multiple versions of himself under different aliases. “Sith Trim comes in colours such as green, Taliban Trim comes fitted with Dungarees and a special edition shape shifts and gets lean.”
The beat from Toddla T is well judged – simple enough to give the bars their full due, yet its eccentric skeletal construction retains interest. For all the bombast and fluidity of the current crop of instrumental grime, Trim kills this rigid, understated pattern – just as Wiley did over the similar-sounding ‘Numbers in Action’. “The grimmest reaper” he boasts in one line, before pulling nightmares out of dreams and blowing your speakers to smithereens.
Trim’s solo back catalogue is available on Bandcamp. Some choice cuts from recent years are included below.
