Steve Gilmore Reviews: Stain Online - Little Miss Star

Hear The Track Here

Artist: Stain Online
Title: Little Miss Star

Third time around for Newcastle based 22 year old Hip Hop producer Stain Online. His first track Dancing With Death (October 2005) didn't go down too well with me at all, and then I had to get all critical on his ass. Ultimately I thought that people who like Hip Hip would get something out of it, but not yer Joe Normal average listener. However, Cradle To The Grave (December 2005) buh-lew me into next week and the difference was startling. Where Dancing was pretty much bog standard, hip hop by rote, Cradle To The Grave was a polemic on life delivered in a rocky kinda style that shouted out originality - albeit with a decidely English slant. It was the vocal though (courtesy of the man himself) that caught my ear; he sings like the young Mick Jagger and that can't be a bad thing...

Little Miss Star is pretty much back in the hip hop groove and it is a fact that it will attract Eminem comparisons, but Stain has never let that put him off. Moreover, because of the English slant it may well stick up the crowd a tad. It's also a great example of how healthy and vibrant is the state of English hip hop by being a very detailed account of falling in love with someone who can only love themselves. It also a rap track where - thankfully - the message is delivered without a gun, a ho, a *** or a **** or a mofo in sight and that - to me - means a great deal indeed. I believe English is a beautiful living language and no matter how many cusswords you load into a track, it still wouldn't mean dick if you cannot make the millions of people who speak the language understand wtf you are rapping about. Little Miss Star is a choice peice of UK hip hop that should be heard by as many non hip hop people as possible to show that this genre really does have merit...

On another subject, Stain Online have just released a new EP called Grid Movement which you can find here and thankfully Cradle To The Grave is one of the track on it. However, I also had a listen to a couple of other tracks. Wide Awake At Sundown is essentially on the same level as Little Miss Star and again show just how good a writer this guy is, every bit as good as any of the more 'commercial' rappers and with a damn sight more style too. Do give this track a bit of time to work on you though, you will be glad you did. My Dead Body is a more rocky offering with a slipping, sliding hip hop beat that is as slick as **** off a shingle, with a rocky vocal sample (again from the man I think) that makes it work on a different level. Suffer (This Way) is much more the kind of hip hop track that I personally get into. A huge sprawling track musically, the rap spits out of the speakers with the right degree of venom, and the cuts and rhythm breaks make this - for me anyway - the track that I would pick from Grid Movement, but take a listen to any of the tracks I have mentioned for an example of what Stain Online can bring to your party...

Stain Online, UK hip hop with a point that doesn't have 'breast of ho' attached to it ;)