4 years since the release of ‘Integrity’ and JME released his hugely anticipated album ‘Grime MC’ exclusively via physical format on 29th November 2019. JME has gone against the norm of the music industry by primarily only selling the album via vinyl’s and CDs and not allowing the digital purchase of it.

JME’s idea was to force his real fans to seek him out and physically buy a hard copy of the album. In 2019 buying a CD is unheard of, however this seemed to work, and people were going out of their way to purchase the album. ‘Grime MC’ debuted at 26 on the UK Top 40 Albums, and just a couple of weeks after the release the album sold out everywhere.

As of January, JME made the album available to buy online on platforms such as iTunes however he has still not released the album onto streaming websites as he has publicly stated his distaste towards streaming. As previously said in an interview with Tim Westwood “I’m trying to figure out how people who love music like me can consume it. I’m not making music for people to have a £10 a month subscription to some company that gives (artists) 0.000001 pence per stream and throws my song on a playlist”.

Grime music first emerged in the early 2000’s, it initially came from the garage scene, with influence from hip hop. After the genre hit a decline in 2009 it didn’t take long for it to pick back up again with a wave of new artists such as Stormzy and AJ Tracey. As these artists have become more popular, they have commercialised their music. However, JME has always stuck to the original, gritty sounds of grime, and ‘Grime MC’ really showcases his talent and love for the genre.

The album features collaborations with popular artists such as Giggs, and JME’s brother Skepta, as well as Preditah who helped with production of the album. Wiley, who is another one of the big names that features on the album, took to Twitter to show support of JME’s physical only release saying “grime is a physical genre, and best to be kept away from the charts”.  

JME is gradually making his album available to those who were unable to get it back in November. He recently released the music videos to ’96 of My Life’, ‘Issmad’ and ‘You Watch Me’ on YouTube as well as putting these 3 tracks on streaming services such as Spotify. The videos show off JME’s creativity and humour as well as really making a statement. There is a hope that he will eventually release the other 15 songs on Spotify as well as uploading an accompanying music video to YouTube.

Researcher: Levi Hudlin, @levihudlin