slowthai, Nothing Great About Britain, Album Review

slowthai

Nothing Great About Britain

Album Review

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Last Friday presented us with some of the best music I've heard so far this year. I had a bunch of new singles as well as a total of three albums to listen to. The first of these three albums being the debut full-length effort from slowthai.

Nothing Great About Britain is the debut album from the Northampton raised rap artist. After making a few waves last year with a selection of single, a full-length album seemed to be under way with the start of 2019.

The beginning of the current year was also my full-fledged start of really getting into slowthai and his music. This was almost completely thanks to his first single of the year "Doorman" which features the talent of DJ Diplo.

Since then, I enjoyed the rest of the teaser tracks to come. These included "Peace of Mind", "Gorgeous" and the albums title track.

These teaser tracks showed a tonne of promise for an album that proved to be everything my high expectations assumed it would be. It's gritty, sinister and as grimy as they come. However, slowthai also manages to come across as an entirely genuine and relatable figure as well as a ruthlessly talented lyrical wizard.

This record has quite a generous amount of music to offer. However, it still manages to display an incredible amount of versatility, especially in terms of production. There is a wide variety of beats ranging from aggressive to chilled. The album stylistically seems to stand as its own unique form of UK rap while also displaying just enough influence from your typical UK grime.

While there are admittedly a couple of tracks that just about missed the mark for me, I am please to say that a vast majority of songs were highly enjoyable. The ones that I deemed as good were incredibly so. Given the albums hefty amount of tracks, It would be wordy to note all of them, but a few tracks to note would be "Dead Leaves" with its subtle yet effective beat, the heartfelt love letter to slowthai's mum in "Northampton Child" and my current favourite on the album "Inglorious" which features both Skepta and an incredibly catchy organ-like production.

Aside from the tracks, there is a far more unique element that really sold this album to me completely. And that, was the shedload of references in slowthai's lyrics, all of which British 90's kids should pick up on right away. As someone who could loosely fit into this category (born in 97), there were a tonne of references which I understood, from Trainspotters, to Yu-Gi-Oh cards, to 99 Cones. It ultimately made Nothing Great About Britain one of the most relatable and furthermore immersive albums of the year so far.

The albums relatability doesn't stop there however. As the title suggests, it's also a very political album. It manages to do this without coming off as too high and mighty as well. slowthai's approach towards the political topics of the album is one that comes from a young British adult, one that so many of us can connect with.

In conclusion, this album is a true service to so many of us brits that are under the looking glass of economic struggle as well as a piece remembering Britain for what it was when we were just kids. Slightly contradictory to the name of this album, slowthai's debut is currently one of the few great things about Britain.

Thank you for reading,

Booth Boy