20. Fatima Al Qadiri - Asiatisch
One of very few female producers to have been granted real exposure in a genre completely dominated by aggressive masculinity, Fatima Al Qadiri is a scene outsider that has always maintained that she can't really be referred to as a "grime" producer due to the fact that she isn't from the London area. That hasn't stopped her from brilliantly creating her own take on the sound though, both as a solo artist and in the supergroup Future Brown (alongside production duo Nguzunguzu and grime expert J-Cush). Where Future Brown's aesthetic is more transnational, drawing on various global genres, Al Qadiri's Desert Strike EP and Asiatisch are both heavily informed by her love of grime. Where Desert Strike is more general in its appropriation of grime's sounds, Asiatisch focuses primarily on a production style that Hyperdub label boss Kode9 refers to as "sinogrime". Sinogrime, a trend he locates in much 2000s grime, is a sound influenced by stereotypical sounds of East Asia sampled from Kung-Fu films and Japanese fighting games. Kode9 has produced a great mix that illuminates several of these tracks Al Qadiri's Asiatisch "modernises" the sinogrime sound with crisp production and new-age-esque sounds, offering a non-UK perspective on a highly specific form of this UK genre. It is a gorgeous album, and one that is unbelievably easy to get lost in.