A few weeks ago a friend of mine dropped a couple of links to some youtube vids in our private Discord. The image for the first vid had a group of elderly gentlemen standing in a field. I wasn't sure what I was in for, but I clicked through anyways and was pleasantly surprised at what I found. The three gentlemen standing in the field turned out to be the Northern Boys and they were spitting mad bars over a remixed version of the beat from Estelle’s “American Boy” about being sad, lonely and DTF.
But that was just the tip of the iceberg. While the Northern Boys had some amusing and grotesque lines like "I gotta take a number three. That's a piss and a shit and wank in a tree!" or "Call me grandad 'cause I f****ed your nan." they could not fully prepare me for how insanely good the main course was about to be. When I clicked on the second link and it took me to the video for "Mr.Worldwide" by Pete & Bas I was immediately smitten and I have not looked back since. I must've listened to both "Party Time" and "Mr. Worldwide" at least 30 times in that first week alone and I have not stopped listening to them since then. The rhymes that Pete & Bas spit are emaculate and their delivery is spot on.
When one thinks of rapping grandparents it usually draws to mind images of tropes like the grandma who performs "Rapper's Delight" in Adam Sandler's The Wedding Singer or any other number of parodies of out of touch seniors trying to be cool. Believe me when I say that Pete & Bas and their crew, The Snooker Team, are crushing that trope with some of the best bars I've heard in some time. The talent of all these gentlemen is undeniable and it seems to be the real deal.
According to Pete & Bas they write all their own lines and work with their grandkids on the production side of things. I can imagine they're picking up a lot of the modern slang they use from them as well. And the Northern Boys own Norman Pain even has some impressive solo work that's worth checking out. It definitely seems like a gimmick but it's definitely not.
While Pete, Bas and rest of their crew have been blowing up in the UK for a few years (P&B's Plugged In W/Fumez The Engineer collab from last year has over 14 million views) it seems like their flavor of UK Drill has started wafting its way overseas. Will they usurp from the throne from MCs that paved the way for them? I honestly don't think that's what it's about and if anything their music definitely seems to come from a real appreciation of UK Drill.
Either way these grandads and their crew are keeping it locked down and I will be pumping their tunes as long as they keep making them.
