The Mysterious Cult of Big H, Grime’s Most Divisive MC
Words by Matt Suckley
All it took for the grime community to get into a frenzy over the prospect of 2014’s Big H vs. P Money clash on Lords of the Mics 6 was a 15-second video showing H at a petrol station with his car — a Peugeot 206. “Oi, Big H! What happened to your German Whip, blood?” Shouts the cameraman, making a reference to his recent feature on fellow Bloodline MC Meridian Dan’s breakout hit ‘German Whip’. This might sound trivial, but in a genre of wealth boasts and rented BMWs this was the killer blow for many — and it hadn’t even been dealt by P Money. Things were getting interesting.
With jokes flying left, right and centre, Lord of the Mics organiser Jammer was capitalising on the hype by charging £100 per ticket for the first ever LOTM live event, and both MCs had (eventually) signed the contract. Immediately the reaction to the upcoming clash was split into two camps — two far apart and diametrically opposed schools of thought that ultimately focused the discussion on Big H rather than on P Money.
The conclusion was mostly that Big H was something of an irrelevance. His name had been tarnished by a period of inactivity (in which a spell behind bars was almost certainly a factor), his second album Fire and Smoke repeatedly missed its scheduled release and his work rate wasn’t deemed anywhere near enough to succeed against an MC as lyrical as P Money. Others — possibly younger fans just getting into grime — appeared to lack any knowledge of Big H at all prior to the clash, outside of his Peugeot 206.
The dominant opinion was that Big H would either fail to prepare or simply not turn up at all. P Money was largely an absentee from these discussions, which was odd for an MC approaching his first high-profile, face-to-face clash. There was the sense that a certain level of quality was guaranteed from P Money; he was the straight man to the wildly unpredictable foil of H. However, with a comfortable P victory already being touted as a foregone conclusion, Big H was always poised to steal the headlines as the rank outsider — the only question was how he would do it.
Praying for a shock result, and willing to express their affiliation vocally, were the Big H devotees — fans who like latching onto his obvious talent and sticking around for whenever he deigns to show it. This fanbase — comprised largely of guys who all know their H history — obviously saw the P Money clash as a great opportunity for him to shake off the cobwebs and show the doubters his ability. It would be his first chance to have a proper clash after a career of sparring, with bad blood between him and various MCs amounting to little more than braggadocio and the occasional dub. They were confident that he’d bring his A-game and thrive under the spotlight.
One such loyal fan, who goes by ‘vIMONST3RIv’ on YouTube, is often active in comment threads and even uploads clips of radio sets featuring H. He reckons that his first exposure to Big H has stuck with him, an experience that many fans share: “The first track [I heard] was ‘Stand Back’ [from 2006 mixtape Boy Better Know Edition 2] and I thought the stuff he raps about is grimy and raw, like grime is supposed to be,” he says. “I also thought his flow was sick, completely different to any other MC.” When asked why he feels the fanbase has endured so long, the key theme of history re-emerges: “Bloodline have a really loyal fanbase because H and all the members are highly talented MCs — they’ve been emceeing since grime started, and have purely stayed true to grime.”
What happened next was going to put that loyalty to the test. After a back-and-forth in which Big H came out swinging with bars such as “you were on 1Xtra, how come you didn’t bring Blacks or Despa?” — he suddenly ran dry. Perceived as having come to the clash with too few bars, Big H seemed ready to end the clash while P Money was eager to finish off the lyrics he’d prepared.
Demanding “more Ps” to continue with the battle, H left the stage and even Jammer — ordinarily the objective voice of Lord of the Mics — directly said “you’ve just lost”. Despite Big H’s seemingly ludicrous insistence that he won unequivocally, a significant chunk of the Big H fanbase were still fighting his corner — their resolve even stiffer and their voices even louder as they fought to combat the accepted notion of a P Money victory, with an over-reliance on easy “see man driving a 206” jabs interpreted as timely but predictable.
“Yeah, after the clash I saw a lot of hate get thrown at Big H, mostly from the newer grime fans,” vIMONST3RIv continues. “I think H won by a mile, as do the loyal Bloodline fans. His bars were better and seemed to hit more nerves than P did. It’s not about who spat the most bars, it’s about the quality… H just came to the clash, did the three rounds, and then left — I don’t see why everyone was so upset.”
But this isn’t solely about Big H’s clash with P Money, and nor should the mistake be made of defining an entire career with one moment. Big H has approached his entire career like it’s one big clash — pugnacious from the start and probably to the end. Only Big H would make effectively unprovoked threats to “punch up Scratchy, chief up Trim” in a feature on one of the year’s biggest grime tracks, or even namecheck Wiley in a clash against an entirely different person.
This cuts to the heart of why Big H is such a divisive artist, and leads back to a core truth of battling: clashes provoke binary responses, which goes some way to explaining why Big H’s approach to attacking everyone and everything in his way has earned him such passionate fans as well as vitriolic opponents. It’s for the same simple reason that fans can’t get enough of Big H while his detractors never tire of slating him and his work: the fact that he simply doesn’t give a fuck.
This is best summed up in an audio clip where he (seemingly) angrily takes on the classic ‘wot do u call it’ conundrum: “Why the fuck is this music called grime? Who done that, is there a guy? Let’s all fuck him up.” Not able to keep it up, he begins to laugh: “I ain’t got no beef with what it’s called, I just wanna start on a n***er.”
It’s a great example because it raises questions over just how often he’s doing this — making bold statements to ruffle feathers for his own amusement, or without too much thought behind them. It seems that H is more self-aware than people realise. What he’s seemingly never grasped though is the responsibility that comes with calling yourself “the grime lord” and “the world’s best grime MC”. Even back in those iconic Practice Hours clips alongside JME, Skepta and Bossman Birdie — a fondly-remembered performance from which H likely won many long-term fans — some of his more outlandish statements were seemingly troubling Skepta.
“Any good tune I hear, I’ll spit on it, you get me?” says H. “It could be garage, hip-hop… I ain’t just come here to spray on no garage tunes, spit my 8-bar here and there, nah, I’ll spit on anything.” Skepta takes immediate issue with this: “This is our music, though. Whatever garage is, whatever that thing is, that’s our music. In America they done hip-hop… but this is like the English one that we’ve made up.”
Big H inspires loyalty almost unlike any other in the game. However, if you try to clash everyone and everything — including the very foundations of the genre you profess to be the lord of — then your chances of winning in the long term can only keep diminishing. Several years later in an interview with Hit the Floor, Big H once again positioned the MC — and, by extension, himself — above all other aspects of the grime sound, including disputing the widely-held belief that the 140BPM tempo plays a key role in defining the sound. “I can spit grime bars on a Jackson 5 beat,” says H. “Grime is defined by the vibe you’re bringing to it.”
