These UK Rap Albums Will Endure Into 2021
2020 was a marathon. Luckily for fans of UK rap, the scene still managed to prosper and provide us with many great moments. While there aren’t many things that we hope will carry over from last year, a number of seminal bodies of work were released that will continue to rack up spins into ’21 and beyond. From the subsections of alternative rap, grime and road rap, here are 3 of 2020’s best.
Lex Amor’s Government Tropicana feels like one of those late-night talks you have with a close friend, the type that has you lose track of time until you notice that the sun is rising. On the album’s immersive, lo-fi beats, Amor manages to be both extremely personal and relatable; traces of the angst of London’s 20-somethings can often be found within her words. What resonates even more strongly though is her resolute spirit, enabled by her network of family and friends, her faith in God and the pride she has in her ends- all of which is summed up in the refrain on the ethereal ‘100 Angels’: “Young black and unsung/Young black London/Raised on a raised fist/ Mummy sang praises.”
All over the project Amor serves up pieces of the ‘young black London’ experience; to those of us who grew up calling tap water ‘government juice’ the project’s title feels like the subtle black head nod you might share with someone you might pass on the street. Even the album’s cover art is reflective of the culture and environment it’s a quintessential example of; it’s as grey as the buildings and the weather of the city but closer inspection reveals something striking, vibrant and engaging. The garage tinged ‘Moesh’ offers balance to the overall murky and moody production of the project and Amor offers moments of levity elsewhere too, like on project standout ‘Mazza’ - “If I buss this ting I’m getting daily ubereats it’s mad/Asking all my jiggas ‘what we eating?, I can help with that.” Whether it’s playful moments like this or the most philosophical of ponderings, Amor has a charisma that leaps from her lyrics even as her delivery remains ever nonchalant in her delivery.
As she dovetails between rap, poetry and singing there aren’t any conspicious signposts pointing you to Amor’s Nigerian heritage or Christian faith for example, yet moving through the album, all the components that make for the environment she is a product of become more apparent through her ‘young proletariat prose’, as she puts it on album closer ‘341 Freestyle’. It’s a prose so rich that it speaks also to the core of who Amor is as an indiviual. To that end Government Tropicana is a two-pronged mission: it aims to be heard in the ends and for the ends to be heard. But Amor words it much better than I ever could with the closing lines of the project — “Might as well let the heavens hear us if we stuck here/Rummage through greys made for blacks/On our blue days/Gold paved streets look like concrete in London.”
Standout Tracks: Mazza, 100 Angels, 341 Freestyle
2020 was yet another year where we failed to escape the banality of the ‘is grime dead?’ hamster wheel. The tire tread of commentary wasted doing donuts around that topic would have been better spent revering Manga Saint Hilare’s brilliant album Make It Out Alive: a grime offering that centres on Manga’s journey of maturation, the challenges of finding his purpose and the loses-turned-lessons that came with it all. Manga started his career in the Roll Deep crew, a foundational and defining grime clique in which he flanked the likes of Wiley and Dizzee Rascal. Rather than falling victim to nostalgia and trying to recapture that feeling of times since gone, Make It Out Alive continues in the vein of his 2018 album Outsiders Live Forever in that it “ transcends the [wants of] diehard grime fans, that speaks to something higher” as the man himself puts it in his interview with the Guardian in July.
No longer the talented but somewhat directionless kid of his Roll Deep days, Manga details his battle with depression, struggles recognising his self-worth and the futility of trying to ‘fit in’ that characterised his past- “I thought cos I grew up that I was growing/it don’t work like that, I weren’t aware” he confesses on ‘Thoughts & Prayers’. Make It Out Alive’s mastery though, is in the moments where Manga sounds so empowered by his own agency that the feeling is palpable. Palpable from the album opener ‘Escape Plan’ — “I started seein’ the results, Different type of brother, I started to evolve/New energy, new me, I started again like I’m gettin’ a reload.”
Being a veteran in this thing, Manga is oh-so comfortable on grime; his wit and humour provide for a number laugh-out-loud moments, and his clarity in tone and delivery really cut through in the more personal and solemn points. Even more crucial than his technical ability, it’s evident how comfortable he is in his own skin- which is makes Make It Out Alive stand out as one of the year’s best albums. Manga might have recently missed out on the MOBO award but the album is a trophy in and of itself.
Standout Tracks: Escape Plan, Thoughts and Prayers, All’s Well That Ends Well
Time is the biggest test of any artist. Consistently delivering quality over a sustained period of time is the only way to legendary status, whatever your niche. If Potter Payper was on the cusp of that status before, Training Day 3 cemented him as one of the best to ever do UK road rap. Much like rap legends Rick Ross or Giggs, Payper has a voice and cadence made for it’s purpose, and whether he’s using it to convey pain, talk crud or remind us of the peaks and valleys of his lifestyle, his flows persistently boom with a gravitas that leaves no doubt as to the seriousness of his raps. TD3’s formula of gritty af street raps over soulful samples isn’t a new one, but it’s one that Payper executes to the highest standard on the mixtape, with many of the standout tracks sampling the likes of Snoh Aalegra and Drake.
In an era where polished drill beats are the standard -all crisp hi-hats and woozy 808s- the tape’s gritty sound almost feels like something of a throwback, but not to the point of sounding dated. It’s actually a welcome reprieve from current trends; and that throughout Payper “gives the streets a real G’s memoir” in his patented refuse-to-be-rushed flow only emphasises the tapes quality. While others would have at least tried their hand at today’s trends, you get the feeling that Payper never even considered the idea. After 2 more than two years away, his fans wanted raw, uncut music from Payper and it just so happens that’s he’s best at.
Save for relative misstep ‘With Me’, a tune made for his female audience that comes off somewhat forced, Payper doesn’t push beyond his comfort zone but instead digs deeper within it to try and perfect what he knows he’s good at; hustler music that is raw and unfiltered. The result? A quintessential road rap project that may even be Payper’s best. As the scene tilts and sways with the weight of each new phase and fad, Training Day 3 showed there is value in not only staying in your lane, but taking ownership of it.
Standout Tracks: Science, Slumdog Millionaire, Purpose
