Around the age of 14, Dizzee Rascal became an amateur drum and bass DJ, also rapping over tracks as customary in sound system culture, and making occasional appearances on local pirate radio stations.

[10] Entertainment Weekly stated that, "Combining U.K. garage beats and a distinctly British sensibility, Rascal spits out phrases with the energy and finesse of a championship boxer".

[5] Pitchfork's Scott Plagenhoef stated, "Dizzee's despairing wail, focused anger, and cutting sonics places him on the front lines in the battle against a stultifying Britain, just as Pete Townshend, Johnny Rotten, and Morrissey have been in the past".

[11] In The Village Voice, Robert Christgau wrote that "His adolescent gulps and yowls are street-Brit with a Jamaican liquidity, as lean, eccentric, and arresting as the beats.

[15] Stylus Magazine stated, "Most of Boy in Da Corner's most compelling moments come from this uneasy interaction between irrational youth and ultra-rational mechanized society".

Steiner from Complex, "Boy in Da Corner brought grime—an influential subgenre of hip-hop birthed from the endless creativity of a bunch of kids from the United Kingdom—to the rest of the world and made a young Dizzee Rascal, his country's first international rap superstar.

[26] In 2016, Dizzee Rascal performed Boy in da Corner in full for the first time first in New York and then in east London at the Copper Box Arena.