On February 12 last year, it felt like a slowthai world was falling apart. The Northampton rapper had silenced many nominations at the NME Awards and picked up a bird fly award as “Hero of the Year.” But a bad joke taken too long meant the night ended in an accident. He interacted with the show’s guest, comedian Katherine Ryan, and a subsequent change with a member of the audience – after which he was slowly taken out of the venue – to perform. look grim as video clips were circulated online, taken out of context.
The criticism was widely followed and immediately his career went up a pyramid built by angry social media users. As hangovers go, the one who woke him up the next day would be a monument. He apologized and received vocal support from Ryan. He returned the “Hero” award, requesting that it be presented to her. She reminded him that “a bad day on social media is passing by so fast. ”But a year in locking up gives you plenty of time to sit with your thoughts. While the February 12 release date is a coincidence – a pandemic-induced delay has been pushed back a week – it’s hard not to see some meaning in it TYRON arriving just one year to the day since slowdown was counted.
While debate is slow, Nothing is true of Britain, focused on his punkish energy and proven to be the right voice for a generation to forget, his feud turns in TYRON, accepting his lyrical book as a diary once again. The table is divided into two halves of seven tracks each: the first half is spelled out in captain’s lock, with everything intelligible, and the lower second half providing softer moments, with a bed of pop symbols and quiet guitar licks under slowthai’s spittle-flecked reflections. Four of these routes in the second half were recorded in 2019 and the first months of 2020, while most of the first half were recorded after the presentation of the catastrophic awards, and the announcement of the pandemic. COVID-19.
As far as so-called fraudulent culture reactions go, “CANCELED,” by Skepta, is among the most popular. While slowthai at least incorporates some humor with the tongue-in-mouth verses of “Harry Potter,” “Lobster,” and “Vodka,” Skepta’s brutal, hard-hitting chorus (“How to Get Rid of Me ? / Twenty awards on the costume? / Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury ”) just emphasizes the joy of the mute button. On the other hand, “VEX,” “WOT,” and “DEAD,” want to play again. Here, slowthai is at its best chocksure, weaving around the beat as if it were just for fun. He carves back at the crowd crossing Kwes Darko’s zappy instruments with the same deceptive vim that made early tracks like “TN Biscuits” so wild.
The rectangular structure of the board can be dangerous in terms of packing, but the pivot point – the cool “PLAY WITH FIRE” is, I admit – getting the balance right. It channels Dizzee Rascal’s thoughtful “Brand New Day” and is punctuated with humorous one-line series (“I’m the next best thing from electronic”) and adroit social commentary. The song itself is divided in half, and ends with a slowthai in communication with itself: “Fuck all that hope / My heart and mind are at war, my soul out here playing piggy in the middle / Why do I feel like I’m keeping the straw short? ”His time for self-reflection comes to one of the most prominent parts of the album.
A ritualistic, slow-flowing lyricism forms the basis of the second half of the album. “Focus” is the highest thought-provoking middle finger: Every second line is rounded, but delivered with the idea of a child’s taste answering a school roll call. On “conditions” he turns stereotypical rap into a stressed introspection with a mixture of challenge and retirement. Two wafty minutes – the soft fall on an acre of “push”; “feel away” rap lullaby —lip by, taken over by two adjoining albums: “nhs” and “adhd.” The first, dedicated to the beloved but saddened National Health Service of the UK, shines between silly and heavy, deep and trite, all hanging together with a curved hook chorus. At the same time, “adhd,” embodies the uproar at TYRONheart. Listen with a pair of headphones and you will feel like packing a slowthai on your shoulder, pouring it into your ears, the last coiled tension while squirming, “Staying and I’m dead / Caught in Charlotte’s net / I can’t I don’t feel myself / complex mind / I’d die. ”
In directing his anger in, slowthai loses some of the urgency and excitement that made his first time so strong, along with the difference that the vulnerable moments of that record made. so amazing. But there is no doubt that he honored his craft, sounding slower as he returned from placard rap to the news process that made him start in the first place. TYRONThis shared situation is a grim way of showing that there is more than one side to anyone – and any story – and it works, in this case, as a path to self-image. more interesting: one who is honest about slowthai faults, and harassment.
Buy: Rough Trade
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