And the pendulum swings again. The kids are dancing to a new (old) beat. Since the police in London have decided to criminalise Grime and ban it’s fans and artists from holding any sort of public performances in their home city, the kids have started to fulfill their itch to drink, dance, bubble at clubs playing what is called “Funky”. Originally short for Funky House the rise in popularity in the scene has triggered a wave of new producers, many of them former grime heads to start making this new stuff. Some say that the rise in popularity of Funky is due to it’s explicit dancfloor focus and the fact that girls do not seem to want to go to grime raves at all any more. This leads to a mass movement of guys following the girls leaving (including most of the big grime artists) and ending up in “Funky Dances” wearing button down shirts, shoes and drinking champagne. While the scene is still in it’s early “what do you call it?” type phase and things are being hammered out, a few tunes have arisen that people are pointing to and saying, “that there, that’s it”. One of the guys making many of these tunes is the man with the most google-handicapped name ever: Apple. Not helping things by calling his tune Mr. Bean (who appeared in an ad for apple computers, search engine camouflage), he’s making these stripped, rugged, post-grime/sort of soca-ish house tunes, which I am digging.

Check out two tunes from Apple:

APPLE – MR BEAN

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uENOY2cSRcA[/youtube]

APPLE – DE SIEGALIZER

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJ-C-ID61EA[/youtube]

Also check out his myspace to hear more, last I checked I was digging “SAMPLE of wots to come”. Grimy, swinging and dark, I hope it is indeed a sign of what’s to come.