The Manchester-born performance poet, rapper and self-defined “stand-up tragedian” releases a striking, distinctively styled experimental hip-hop debut with a title inspired by his heritage – meaning the Jamaican folk religion combining revivalism with ancestor worship and spirit possession. Accordingly there’s a frantic, high-voiced, menacing edge to his delivery style – agile, unpredictable and full of stream-of-consciousness phrasing, filled with vivid cultural reference and internalised conversations, particularly about the trauma of growing up in Black Britain. Co-produced with Kwes Darko, there’s oodles of sonic experiment, from the distorted, blurry drums and background noise on opener Talawah, oddball electronica on Fishscaels, while the angry, socially conscious A Is For Africa starkly parodies the flawed educational upbringing with more caustic, true-to-life alphabetical association. The dark, strange Union Jack, and the title track, for example twist and turn and repeat like a distorted, pained nursery rhyme, while closer The Great Black Hope has the quality of a disembodied voice broadcasting on a crackling pirate radio station. Starkly and edgily original, fizzling with ideas and mental anguish mantra. Out on Young.
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