“Urban Hero” is such an enduring banger that you can still hear it played out by DJs today.
Moving along at a frenetic pace, the song is composed of three simple elements. The main riff is a grimey, intense plucked string noise, playing a repetitive variation the same little hook. This is echoed by a warping, heavy bassline which runs us wet neaththe track and pushes it forward.
The drums are typical 2step garage drums, but there’s a foreshadowing of grime in the fast paced head bopping edginess of it all.
The song is viewed as one of the early precursors of the MC led grime scene, as it takes a much darker, more stripped back approach to garage then much of the champagne and shirt pop cheesiness associated with the scene.
Urban Hero was released in 2001 on Lifestyle records, backed with “Slow Jam”.