David Peter Meads aka Scroobius Pip has been about since about 2006, but I have to admit I have only been listening to him for the last 2-3 years. It was the earlier stuff with Dan le Sac that got me excited. It is his second second album with Le Sac, Angles is where Pip just shines and there is a quote from Betty Clarke at the Guardian that I love.
“He (Pip) is reminiscent of punk poet John Cooper Clarke, defining beauty in terms of Tommy Cooper’s bungling magic and exploring the selfishness of the self-harmer’s defiant autonomy.”
What you get with Distraction Pieces is production that is very gritty and, my word, can Scroobius Pip spit a lyric? But it’s not just the lyrics, it’s the way he delivers them. He is as an old uni friend used to say an “Urban Poet”.
He isn’t afraid to take risks, lyrically and musically. This is evident in the topics tackled on the album. Tunes like ‘Domestic Silence’ and ‘Soldier Boy Kill ‘em’, you can see straight away that there’s nothing he would leave untouched.
One of my favourite tracks on the album has to be the very interesting cover of Kate Bush’s ‘Feel It’, featuring Scroobius rapping the male’s point of view over Natasha Fox’s soaring vocals. It really is a fitting conclusion to the album.
This is defiantly some of the best stuff I have heard from Pip, it is raw emotion with the stunningly beautiful and honest rhymes throughout. With Distraction Pieces, I firmly believe that Scroobius Pip has put himself as one of the most important and relevant men in UK hip-hop.
Im going to leave you with the opening track on the video which up until the end is one take. The whole video cost no more than £100 and has Pip shaving his hair and beard off….. What more would you expect?
