Jim Legxacy’s ‘black british music’ cracks U.Ok. rap open : NPR

In the course of the second evening of headlining exhibits at London’s Wi-fi Competition this month, beleaguered big Drake made a grandiose declare concerning the state of hip-hop hegemony. “No disrespect to America. No disrespect to my nation. However, no one can out-rap London rappers,” he mentioned as he introduced the grime legend Skepta to the stage. “That is one of the best, that is the very best stage. That is what I aspire to be.” He appeared adamant on proving the speculation that evening, asking a few of the metropolis’s brightest stars to make the case for him in efficiency: J Hus, Central Cee, Headie One and Dave. The feedback, in fact, incited a mini-uproar, principally from Individuals laughing off the entire sentiment. Sports activities commentator Bomani Jones leaned into consensus with a convincing eye-roll: “They do not even consider that s***.”

Contemplating Drake’s present vested curiosity in underselling stateside rap’s efficiency, it’s totally onerous to present the declaration any weight, but it surely additionally appears clear to me what he’s referencing about British rap: the slappiness and power, that punchy high quality in each insistent line supply on songs like “Shutdown” or “Titanium.” I personally consider Dave, the considerate London hood ethicist and social critic who has topped the U.Ok. charts and gained the Mercury Prize, to be one of the best rapper on this planet, and it is true that the scene is undeniably slept on, from Kojey Radical and Avelino to Pa Salieu and Wesley Joseph. However misplaced within the sensationalism of the declare have been its phrases of engagement. What struck me was not Drake’s assertion itself, however the benchmark set by “out-rap” — a wierd measurement for somebody who has notably suffered not one, however two colossal lyrical defeats (by the hands of American rappers), and whose nice contributions to rap canon are melody and perspective. Why would he even worth such a metric? Why ought to they, given the rap local weather? In truth, it felt like he was promoting the motion brief.

Drake’s phrases have been ringing by way of my head as I took my first hearken to black british music (2025), the brand new document by Lewisham rapper/singer/producer Jim Legxacy — among the finest rap releases of the yr, made, markedly, with out a lot rapping. It is onerous to think about Legxacy “out-rapping” anybody, if he have been even concerned about such a factor, and but he is among the most fun rappers on the planet. Knowingly, he toys with the excellence within the early moments of the venture, dubbed a “mixtape.” “She don’t love no rapper, so I advised her I am a singer,” he exclaims on a track referred to as “new david bowie.” The very title of the tape appears to shun the thought of style all collectively: simply “Black British music,” as if it have been a medley of issues pulled from an overarching archive.

black british music (2025) is a jumbled, marvelous survey of twenty first century U.Ok. rap, figuring out connective tissue with Afrobeats, emo, drill and storage. Most pop music of the Black diaspora, even that of the U.Ok., treats both Africa or America because the fulcrum of cultural change, however Legxacy facilities the British expertise. “Black British music: We have been making asses shake for the reason that Windrush,” a DJ proclaims, nodding to the affect of Caribbean migrants on the British sound. The tape samples Wiley’s foundational eskibeat type and Case’s “Lacking You,” interpolates Hus and Snow’s “Informer,” options Dave and like-minded riser Fimiguerrero whereas channeling pop punk, hat-tips Giggs and Blade Brown however emulates Drake’s R&B-by-osmosis strategy to rap. Negotiating the numerous layers beneath any multicultural ethos is a follow not misplaced on Legxacy, a toddler of Nigerians who was impressed to make music at 19 after listening to Kanye West‘s The Lifetime of Pablo. “Numerous us are technically the primary British folks in our whole lineage, and that has an enormous cultural affect,” Legxacy advised Rolling Stone again in March. “Our identification remains to be at some extent the place it is malleable. We’re determining what that’s.”

That exploration of figuring issues out is, in some way, balanced with the boldness of figuring out oneself. Legxacy’s curiosity is each inward- and outward-looking, producing little vignettes from his life and the sounds that formed it, pieced right into a mosaic that revels in contradictions and polarity: “Broke however I by no means was a miskeen / On the block, I used to be listenin’ to Mitski,” he raps on “father.” His breakout venture, homeless n**** pop music, additionally stuffed loads beneath one umbrella — turning Soul for Actual into one thing you could possibly gwara gwara to and giving Miley Cyrus her personal riddim — however there’s a heightened instinct at play right here. All Legxacy songs bear an emotional residue, and but these ones have a way reminiscence coloured, greater than something, by the lack of his sister, who died of sickle cell anemia. “I’ve all the time been petrified of being myself / Of letting my coronary heart converse earlier than I converse,” he sings on “problems with belief.” “Because you left our lives, I am blaming myself for all of the issues I mentioned and I by no means mentioned.” It seems like he is saying them now — or, if not saying, then expressing subconsciously, letting the guts converse — manifesting the muddled emotions introduced on experiencing grief and prosperity concurrently.

There’s a poignancy suffusing these performances, a curse following the artist from room to room, taking on all of the oxygen, even on the membership. Nobody has ever made “bringing all of the racks out” sound as glum as he does on “stick.” Legxacy advised The New York Occasions he got down to “make a futuristic model for the current based mostly on what has existed up to now,” and doing so swirls cultural and private histories, producing songs that may be each brash and unguarded. He delivers most of his raps within the sort of singsong cadence that has grow to be nonregional in recent times, however he makes use of it to deploy hometown slang and scan his metropolis. His voice is distinctly mellow, subdued but euphonic, lending itself to acts of subtlety — however when he presses, as on the hook for “d.b.a.b,” indignation is not removed from his grasp. There’s a quiet, pent-up rage trying to seep out, a lot he’s nonetheless working by way of, which pushes him ever ahead, rendering a triumphant but loss-stained depiction of residence that reverberates like an echo. In his invoking of music all through the diaspora, Legxacy is able to bravado (“i simply banged a snus in canada water“) and contrition (“’06 wayne rooney“), if by no means precisely within the methods you’d count on, however he’s at his greatest teasing out the stress in between.

On songs like “stick” and the Dave-featuring “3x,” he glides alongside pattering rhythms, however the motion is not weightless; it bears the stress of his baggage like an albatross. “I received n****s tryna verify me out of pleasure / I received gyallie tryna hit me on the facet / I received ’nuff folks preyin’ on me,” he lays out on the latter, letting out the final line like a sigh. Nonetheless, within the tight visitor spot that follows, Dave notes that he believes Jim has made his sister proud. The second comes a number of songs after the youthful rapper has dropped a reference to “Wanna Know,” Dave’s 2016 collab with Drake, so you may think about what the sentiment means to him — how there’s a loop closing right here, a torch being prolonged, a practice being handed on. (In a manner, it additionally seems like an change of favors: Legxacy co-produced “Sprinter,” Dave’s 2023 single with Central Cee, which turned the longest-running No. 1 rap hit in U.Ok. charts historical past.) One way or the other Legxacy straddles the strains of confession and homage impeccably. The futurism is within the integration of his system, as he turns into a one-man sound conflict of British music.

Legxacy appears to be utilizing this venture to shut the gap between “Black” and “British” as signifiers — navigating two overlapping types of displacement and selfhood, in search of the connective area the place individuality meets neighborhood. You would consider black british music (2025) as a reflector for all Black British music, and its launch comes at a productive time for U.Ok. rap. There’s a wealthy historical past, courting again to Dizzee Rascal, JME and The Streets, however there has by no means been extra outdoors consciousness of the tradition than proper now, and some of the native stars are responding to the elevated consideration in new methods.

Any convo on the state of the scene should start with Central Cee, U.Ok. rap’s first true worldwide success story. On the duvet of his debut album, Cannot Rush Greatness, from January, he wears a skully with the British flag and holds up a large Queen Elizabeth chain. Cee’s imaginative and prescient of British rap is one in all international conquest — not diasporic inquiry, as with Legxacy, however social affect. Numerous the document feels prefer it’s conspicuously reaching throughout the pond, flexing the achievement of merely having succeeded the place different British music has failed. “I hear them talkin’, seein’ the tweets, I am seein’ the boards / Seein’ them point out everybody else however me like say that I am not essential / The entire strikes that I make in America’s makin’ it simpler for them,” he raps on “No Introduction.” He is in Beverly Hills and Miami, hitting Rodeo Drive and flaunting his Columbia deal. There are logical team-ups with Dave and Skepta, but additionally strategic partnerships with Lil Child and Lil Durk, and a cheeky collab with British expat turned ATL shooter 21 Savage referred to as “GBP.” “No person else from London’s gone Hollywood, simply Cee or the boy Damson,” he boasts on “CRG.” When he places himself on prime of the U.Ok. sport on “Should Be,” it feels much less like sovereignty and extra like marking off a piece of a Go board, the place buying extra territory is important to actually win.

One thing completely different is happening throughout Jordan Adetunji’s A Jaguar’s Dream, launched the identical week. From Belfast (by the use of London), the vocalist and rapper went viral on TikTok for the 2024 single “Kehlani,” named for the singer, mixing drill and R&B by way of a pattern of Summer season Walker’s “Potential.” The U.Ok. and New York Metropolis drill scenes are tightly interwoven — most of the greatest Brooklyn drill songs, together with Pop Smoke’s “Dior,” have been produced by youngsters from London — however “Kehlani” is much extra Money Cobain than M1onTheBeat, and Adetunji sounds much less like he is from the U.Ok. than merely of the web. Vocally he rests someplace between trapsoul pioneer Bryson Tiller and bionic man Don Toliver; like fellow chameleon skaiwater (who broke by way of with the Jersey club-inspired “#Miles“), there’s nothing to outwardly determine him as a Briton. Singers from the U.Ok. usually lose their accents in efficiency; British rappers have been outlined by them, typically to their detriment. Adetunji represents a brand new crop of MCs not beholden to the quirk, present within the Drake custom of being so melodic that rap feels largely like an overview. A Jaguar’s Dream brings to thoughts Legxacy’s remark about malleability, the U.Ok. identification being much less inflexible (Adetunji can be the kid of Nigerians) — besides that the place Legxacy’s music is as private as it’s kaleidoscopic and as homegrown as it’s untethered, Adetunji’s music appears as if it has been hollowed out primarily right into a receptacle for out of doors sounds.

And maybe that is advantageous, contemplating what number of different mainstays of U.Ok. rap have launched albums this yr demonstrating the breadth and persona of the place. Little Simz, Loyle Carner, AJ Tracey, John Glacier and Wretch 32 all put out choices which can be distinctly British but additionally singular. (Kae Tempest, too, although mileage might differ there.) Simz’s Lotus marks a inventive rebirth from one in all England’s biggest lyricists, because the extremely conceptual auteur defines her sound with out her longtime collaborator Inflo, following the title’s metaphor of transformation by increasing her emotional and aesthetic palettes to crackling impact. Loyle Carner’s hopefully ! finds an earnest spoken-word artist loosened by fatherhood, drawn right into a doting posture by his understated reside band. With Do not Die Earlier than You are Useless, AJ Tracey bridges grime and drill with skittish, somber flows, even flipping Playboi Carti‘s “R.I.P. Fredo (Discover Me)” into a contemporary eskibeat reinvention. John Glacier’s Like A Ribbon is a hanging debut marked by stony flows and skittering rhythms, the juxtaposition of which makes for a sort of dissociative expertise. HOME?, Wretch 32’s first album in six years, is like black british music (2025) made by a U.Ok. rapper of the earlier technology, and of Jamaican lineage; with songs referred to as “Black and British” and “Windrush” back-to-back, it is roots-tracing and asylum commentary multi function, delivered with unshakable conviction.

If there’s a key distinction between HOME? and black british music (2025), it is in that query mark. The previous is an album of belonging, and rightfully so, in search of aid for doubts he just lately posed to The Guardian: “I am right here, however am I accepted right here? Or am I simply tolerated right here?” Displacement will all the time be the subtext of U.Ok. rap, however black british music (2025) appears to know that your identification is yours and yours alone, pulling from a wellspring that’s borderless, even non secular. It’s not one thing that may be taken or overwritten. In a sure sense, the album honors the interconnectedness of those British tales, the broader tapestry they weave collectively, but additionally the idiosyncrasies that make every story its personal. “This that Blue Borough s***, I hope you are listening,” Legxacy repeats twice, referencing his Lewisham hometown. It is a people chorus that he and lots of others will repeat, advert infinitum, till they’re heard.