Album of the Week: 'Boy In Da Corner'

Maybe I'm the kind of politically correct man that haunts the dreams of Richard Littlejohn, but I can't help seeing racism in places that you wouldn't expect to find it. Prime among these is the racism in the field of music writing and appreciation. The tradition of 'black' music is exactly as creative and proficient, and dull and deficient, as 'white' music, but Cecil Taylor isn't mentioned in the same breath as Olivier Messiaen, and, somehow, Charlie Mingus is shamefully denied the title of the King of Music. When it comes to rap, the combination of insult and ignorance is shameful. Although music writing has gradually accepted that rap is worthwhile, Public Enemy's Bomb Squad aren't regarded by most geeks to be the equivilents of Autechre and Stockhausen that they are. And Dizzee Rascal, the greatest living British composer, is wheeled out like some exotic curio on Jonathan Ross.

The Rascal's first album, 'Boy In Da Corner', released in the year he turned 18, is an absurdly dense, challenging work. Alternately poppy and nightmarish, always tense and angry, it reaches the heights of Public Enemy, but manages to be witter and more engaging. Also, it's just more radical - the spaces that Dizzee is prepared to create would give Dr. Dre a heart attack. 'I Luv U' punches the listener with disgusting music and cutting lyrics about a teen pregnancy, and has the rare distinction of being an overtly misogynist song which gives the female race a right to reply. The spat claim "That girl's some bitch you know" is met with a biting "That boy's some prick you know". The brilliant, sparse 'Cut 'Em Off' takes the skittering beats of UK Garage, places them in a giant echoic room, and slows them to the pace of a dying heartbeat, providing the ideal backdrop for his coherent whinging.

Like another great rap innovator, Eminem, Dizzee subverts the traditional content of rap lyrics. 'Cut 'Em Off' and 'Round We Go' take the boasts of criminality and virility that make up most rap lyrics, and render them as whines. 'Cut 'Em Off''s chorus of "Socialise - negotiate" is wrapped in numerous voices, slapping into each other, mocking the competition of the 'Game' so beloved of ghetto folklorists. Just in case we missed the point, the song ends with a muttered, lonely instance of the word 'cunt'. 'Round We Go', while it features some truly ill-judged boasts (try to remember that "bend her over and I leave her limpin'" are the words of an 18-year-old), has a chorus refrain "ain't no love thing here - it's just one big cycle here", delivered in a tone that sounds remarkably like crying.

No wonder it won the Mercury Prize. Artists this inventive are very few and far between, and Rascal's demonstrated his flexibility by moving from the hard, abrasive style of 'Boy In Da Corner' to being one of Britain's most inventive pop stylists. Long may he make his thrillingly mental music