Dizzee Rascal's Many Firsts

Dizzee Rascal may only be 23 years old, but he's three albums into a hip-hop career that's eight years in the making, and he's learned a lot about himself and the music business in the process.

"Self-belief is the key," he says on the phone after getting a haircut in England. "Even when others don't believe in you, you have to put yourself around people who do, because they will make the effort to try and steer you in the right direction and make your visions become reality.

"Be wise with your money. Be wise with what you say. Be wise where you're seen."

The last year has been full of many firsts for Rascal (real name Dylan Mills), and he's been able to put that knowledge to good use. His third album, Maths + English, was released in the U.K. last year and came out on these shores in April. It was his first for his new U.S. label, Definitive Jux Records. Rascal previously released albums in North America through Matador Records, but says he moved to Def Jux because he thought it would be a good fit.

"[They have a good] reputation for selling hip-hop that's a bit different. They've done so well with it that it just seemed like the right thing to do because of where I was coming from. [My music] isn't the typical American hip-hop."

Maths + English is full of Rascal's trademark brand of U.K. grime, which features him layering his unconventional lyrics and rhythms over eclectic samples. But unlike his two previous albums, it features somewhat more conventional phrasing and is more hook-centred.

"I wanted to branch out to more people and try something new and exciting, and do it differently than I'd done it before," says Rascal.

In order to do that, he looked to people like Lily Allen, who guests on the single "Wanna Be," which reworks the chorus of "So You Wanna Be A Boxer" from the 1976 film Bugsy Malone. He'd originally been working with Allen's producers and they'd been trying to think of ways to flip the "boxer" theme.

"Gangsta was the obvious thing," says Rascal. "They looked through their files and they found one that already had Lily Allen on it, so she must have tried it before.

"She actually came in and recorded it again in the studio. She was hung-over, actually, but she was still cool, though. We clicked pretty much right away."

Maths + English is Rascal's most successful album to date, and reached #7 on the U.K. sales chart. But Rascal didn't leave his new hooky approach there. Earlier this month, he independently released "Dance Wiv Me," a non-album single featuring Scottish electro-pop artist Calvin Harris. It was the first independently released single to hit #1 in Britain in 14 years.

While things haven't reached that scale on this side of the pond, Rascal still enjoys jetting to North America. He says he doesn't care how people get into his music, so long as they listen to it and appreciate it.

"I've been to a few [North American] shows and you could tell it was a bit new to them. But it's all good times, man. People don't kind of know what to expect of me anyways. But that's kind of where I get the most fun, anyways. You can name types of music until you're blue in the face, but in the end, music is just music, isn't it?"

You can see Dizzee Rascal when he plays the Rogers Picnic at Toronto's Fort York on Sunday with City And Colour, Cat Power, Tokyo Police Club, Vampire Weekend, Born Ruffians and others.