St John's is not the kind of place where one expects to meet Dizzee Rascal. It provides a striking visual contrast to the tower blocks of Bow where he grew up, and whose world he described so vividly on his debut album Boy In Da Corner. Dizzee had been booked to perform at the St John's May Ball. On my way into the college, everyone was bemused that he would be performing at such an affair. Dizzee was not unprepared, though. He had played at a ball in Oxford, and found it "fun... You'd expect them to be really uptight, but it's a good night out." This is consistent with his inclusive approach to performing live. He sets out "to entertain the people, obviously. To make the people get as loose as they can ‘til the point where they do not give a fuck about how they look, or how anyone's seeing them." His approach has changed little over the course of his career, "except now there may be a few more sixteen-year old girls at the front," he boasts. And, on this night, a few more people in black tie.

When Dizzee broke through in 2003, he was the first rapper from the grime scene to receive national attention. Broadsheets rhapsodized about the new sound and predicted that its unique, distinctly British style would provide American rap music with an effective rival. Five years later, however, it remains a niche interest. He isn't comfortable being associated with the genre - when asked if he considers himself a grime artist, he replies: "I see myself as an artist. Period."

His concerns appear to lie partly with grime's commercial limitations, but also with its musical parameters. He's always been capable of writing pop songs - the audaciously simple ‘Fix Up, Look Sharp', from his debut, remains his most famous - but this has become increasingly important to him. Since Boy In Da Corner, he feels that he's "got better lyrically, better at my craft in general," but also that he's "getting better at writing pop songs, more pop-friendly songs." This can be seen with the uninspired ‘Dance Wiv Me', but it seems that Dizzee has found a model in Southern rap, which often has its eye on the club. He has long expressed admiration for this particular genre of hip-hop, and he has collaborated with the legendary Texas rap duo UGK. For Dizzee, the appeal of such music lies in the fact that "it's probably the closest to slavery and all that as well, because we all came to the South first. It's just a lot of black heritage there, and it really comes across in the music... the south, it feels back to basics." Dizzee's rapping shares something with this: although technically accomplished, and blessed with an immediately recognizable, high-pitched flow, he prefers direct story-telling to metaphorical trickery.

This puts him in opposition to much of the music on his American label, Definitive Jux. Home to artists like Cannibal Ox and Aesop Rock, whom Dizzee confesses to never having heard before he signed, it is known for its dense, often opaque lyrics. What Dizzee shares with his label-mates is a taste for introspection. Alongside tracks laced with paranoia and braggadocio, songs like ‘Do It' ("sometimes I wake up wishing I could sleep for good, and if I had the guts to end it all believe I would") stand out for their vulnerability. Is honesty something that he searches for in his lyrics? "Yeah, that's the most important thing for me, it puts across my personality. I learn about myself through it as well, and people learn about me, and people can connect because it's real." Why do many other rappers find this difficult? "When you're making a song, it's easy to create a persona for yourself because it's entertainment. It's easy to become someone else through your writing. For some people it's not about soul-searching: it's about writing about who they could be."

Part of Dizzee's lyrical honesty lies in his depiction of life in inner-city Britain, which he never glamorises. Shortly before Tony Blair stood down last year, Miles Johnson wrote a piece arguing that he was wrong to ignore artists like Dizzee, who say far more about Britain today than Oasis or Coldplay. Is there a place for rappers cooperating with politicians, acting as public spokespeople? "We kind of are. I think that's what's been a major part of my success, especially with Boy in Da Corner, is the social commentary. You can get a real feel for where I come from - ie London city, UK - through the music. If you listen to it, you can really find out - not just the negative stuff, this one's killing this one - but the mind state, the mentality. You won't get it fully unless you go there, witness it, be there, live it, and breathe it. But you can get an idea." Maybe he should get his record label to send his albums to Gordon Brown, I suggest. "Maybe he should go and buy them. How about that? I pay tax."

Amidst the recent escalation of knife crime, some have suggested that the violence in many grime videos was having a copycat effect. Is it right to make these kinds of links between music and violence? "It's one link. I can't pretend that it's not real... I don't think it's the major one, though, ‘cos it's just mirroring itself." He points instead to "man's desire to be a bastard to the next man. That's always been there. The Mafia's been around for how many fucking hundred years now? What were they listening to?" Dizzee is not immune to making aggressive boasts himself. On ‘Sirens,' the first single from Maths + English, he claims: "I break the law, I will never change." Coming from a man so keen to break into the mainstream, this is a preposterous claim, but he interrupts my protest: "I fucking mean it! Yeah! Right!" Pushing his head towards me, he adds: "And I'll break you!" He proceeds to laugh hysterically, and is joined by his friends in the room, who are filming the interview; my own chuckles are more tentative, tempered by fears that this will end up on Youtube.

I take this as a sign that my time is up. Dizzee seems so hungry for super-stardom, yet his ascent has been slower than predicted (for close to a year, he lacked an American label to release Maths + English). Will a British rapper ever achieve worldwide success? I'd intended for my question to be general, but his answer is specific: "Yeah, I'm gonna. It's just a matter of time." I admired his ambition, but feared for his chances. A couple of weeks after we spoke, however, ‘Dance Wiv Me' entered the charts at number one. Perhaps Captain Rusko really will take off.

Daniel Cohen