In a track from his forthcoming second album Showtime, he admits he's "had enough of ghetto toughs" and asks "If I told you I was leaving the hood, would you call me a sinner?" As long as he keeps delivering beats and rhymes like this, we'll forgive anything.s.price independent.co.uk. And, as the saying goes, he knows it: he specifically refers to his "adolescent rage" and his "gift of the gab" (at school, he must have been a teacher's nightmare). "Afro-Caribbean singers and MCs, I swear to you," he says, in a speech so impassioned it's almost inarticulate, echoing the sentiments of Nas's "I Know I Can" for British ears, "Do your shit, don't net nuffin or nobody stop you, I swear to you." But local flavour would be worthless without the talent to make it work Dizzee has it by the truckload. In many ways the Rascal, with his awkward stumbling gait and apparent shyness, is not a natural star, but a natural poet. Dizzee is defiantly British, and specifically London: paraphrasing Snoop, he talks about "so much drama in the LBH" (London Borough of Hackney?) as opposed to the LBC (Long Beach, California). Same as it ever was, same as it ever was.In the past twelve months, Dizzee Rascal has become a cause c?bre, feted by people whose taste in urban music would nevr normally travel so deep underground. He cares, for instance, about being on the same stage as Sovereign, a tiny 18-year-old female MC who raps about getting ID-checked, while her talented male sidekick human-beatboxes the bassline to Jacko's "Billie Jean".Without gettign too sentimental about it, there is something undeniably thrilling about hearing people creating art int he argot of the city in which you live, rather than emulating America.

Picking up a Mercury for his debut album Boy in Da Corner, he accepted his accolade politely, if quizzically, bewildering viewers with his semi-comprehensible, slang-heavy dedication to the rest of the UK garage scene.Because Dizzee patently doesn't care about the gongs. This is a song arranged by Goran Bregovic from the soundtrack to the film Underground .. This is by the Italian songwriter Guiseppe Verdi ... This is a song I wrote for a New York dance project called The Catherine Wheel ... " Is David Byrne the world's artiest pop star? I can't think of many other artists who would announce so many songs in the manner above. And I can't think of many audiences who would shout "Wooh! Yeah!" in response. With his brown slacks and brown shirt, hair as white as his comfy shoes, David Byrne looks less like an art-pop legend, more like a UPS parcel courier.

He still hances like his limbs are pieces of string with pebbles at the ends, pulling off some tango moves doing the Hispanic numbers whch would make Niles Crane green with envy. Byrne's bizarre body language and general eccentricity ahs always been slightly supect. Tonight, when he straps on his acoustic guitar then realises he's preparing for the wrong song and affects a sharp intake of breath - "uhhh!" - there are embarrassed titters. If you're acting like that at twentysomething, it's most likely an affectation. If you're still doing it at 50-plus, it's surely real?Byrne's solo ventures into world music might not float everyone's boat, but it has to be conceded that they're more integrated and natural than Damon Albarn's, less smug than Sting's or Paul Simon's.