Written for The Courier’s music section

In a week when 21 Savage’s UK heritage was revealed, Anglo-American hip hop relations have naturally been put under the microscope.  The resulting onslaught of memes has highlighted the fact that the UK scene – which used to define itself, almost dogmatically, in opposition to its counterpart in the states – now resembles its American cousin more closely than ever.

This is not necessarily to the UK’s detriment, as is generally perceived; the relationship is often reciprocal.  Recent years have seen Method Man adopt the Ocean Wisdom flow on Wiz’s track ‘Ting Dun’, A$AP Rocky and Skepta’s exhibit their symbiosis on ‘Praise Da Lord’ and DJ Premier lend his fabled production talents to The Four Owls on ‘Think Twice’ – all are prototypes for mutually beneficial transatlantic collaboration.  

So often however, UK artists seem to parrot American motifs in a lazy, albeit successful, attempt to emulate their commercial success.  To them, it probably feels a bit like being stuck behind a slow-moving tractor: British MC’s are unable to move past the chart-dominating juggernaut that is US hip hop so are forced to meet its speed.  On his eponymous debut however, AJ Tracey shows this adoption of a similar stylistic approach doesn’t necessitate the same cringe-fuelled reaction induced by many of his contemporaries, even if lyrically he sometimes runs the risk of being labelled one-dimensional.

For the most part, his self-titled debut album sounds as though Tracey has taken a chunk Metro Boomin production, covered it in glue and punted it through suburban London; references to N’golo Kante, Nigel Farage and the Shard are met with rolling hi-hats, melodic bass and Migos-style adlibs.  The result is the core of an album which is heavily Americanised but ostensibly British enough that people will still call it ‘grime’, even if in reality it’s more Waka Flocka than Wiley.  

Interspersed between these polished and relatively formulaic sections however are genre switch-ups which breathe new life into the album, accommodating AJ’s more melodic vocal performances on the bluesy ‘Country Star’ and dancehall inspired ‘Butterflies’.  This apparent sensitivity is tonal in nature only, though. Bragadaccio and hedonism are ever-presents throughout the album’s 15 tracks, extending to the cover art itself which shows Tracey with a baby goat in his lap, an expression somewhere between disinterest and imperiousness written across his face – the symbolism is blatant.  

There are moments when this unrelenting pomposity can be grating, but for the most part AJ gets away with it, his unapologetic demeanour is curiously endearing.  The ironically titled ‘Wifey Riddim 3’ is the best example of this, the West London MC playfully chanting “my girl you can’t be, but I wanna see you up and out of them jeans, yeah” over compressed snares and infectious tropical xylophone keys.

‘Ladbrook Grove’, an homage to the area where Tracey spent his youth, is bonified UK garage.  Produced by Conducta and featuring a pitched up Jorja Smith sample, the track provides a rare opportunity for gunfingers in an album which is driven predominantly by its mellower cuts.

It’s clear AJ Tracey is revelling in his role as the newest commercially viable face of UK hip hop. This sprawling marriage of drill, dancehall and trap can sometimes feel contrived, but the ambitiousness should be lauded.  Overall, AJ is a relatively convincing evangelist for hip hop transatlanticism.

6/10

Written for The Courier in the wake of the sad passing of World Cup winner Gordon Banks, as part of a list of the most iconic goalkeepers in the history of the game.

In 2016, When Gianluigi Buffon broke the Serie A record for the longest time without conceding a goal, he penned a wistful love letter to the net he defends:

“I was 12 when I turned my back on you, denying my past to guarantee you a safe future. I went with my heart. I went with my instinct. But the day I stopped looking you in the face is also the day that I started to love you, to protect you, to be your first and last line of defence”

I wonder how many other footballers could get away with such gushing poetry…

Although he plays the game with his hands, Gigi is the quintessential Italian footballer: the physical embodiment of reliability and composure, but also of passion and eccentricity.

He remains the only goalkeeper to break the world transfer record after his move from Parma to Juve for €52 million in 2001 – an astronomical figure for a goalkeeper, even today. 11 Serie A and 4 Coppa Italia titles later, it’s fair to say it was a bargain.

The highlight of Buffon’s career came on the international stage as his Italy side triumphed at the 2006 World Cup – Gigi conceding only through an own-goal and a penalty. One of the enduring images of that tournament is Gianluigi between the sticks, resplendent in gold, sporting his Alice band and trademark short-sleeves.

His heroic performances earnt him runner-up in that year’s Ballon D’or, second only to Italy captain Fabio Cannavaro. Like Cannavaro, Buffon is surely one of the finest players never to have won the Champions League.

After 17 seasons with the Bianconeri, the 41-year-old Tuscan has moved to Paris in search of European glory. PSG are far from the most universally liked team but there are few who would begrudge Buffon were he to lift the elusive trophy with them after 20 years at the absolute pinnacle of world football.

Written on the eve of the final day of the 18/19 Premier League season as part of a ‘for and against’ piece. The other half of the piece was written by a colleague who proposed that Liverpool who were more deserving of winning the title race. City won in the end…

As the narrative of the 2018/19 title race has unfolded, there has been a strong argument to proffer Manchester City as the villain of the piece. Oil rich, playing in front of a ¾ capacity crowd and embroiled in allegations of financial doping, plucky and charming underdogs they certainly are not.

But, in the midst of all the rhetoric and the blistering title challenge from their rivals on Merseyside, it’s easy to neglect giving Guardiola and Manchester City their dues. Yes, they’ve spent on a scale hitherto unforeseen in football, but what City’s Catalan ringmaster has done on these shores goes beyond money, beyond narratives, beyond common sense, even. Guardiola’s men are playing at the very frontier of football, constantly testing the limits of what the game can be – even if it isn’t particularly endearing, no one can deny their fundamental brilliance

Last season, City’s opponents seemed to be pissing in the wind, this season some seemed to have given up pissing altogether. Such is the disparity in terms of quality between them and their opponents, teams in the bottom half have seemed content to shut up the proverbial shop and keep the score line as un-embarrassing as possible.

Conversely, almost anyone who has had the temerity to turn up and try and out-play them has seemed stuck in a mouse wheel, chasing sky-blue blurs about the pitch for 90 minutes and getting absolutely nowhere. With a Brighton side in freefall still to play, City have scored 4 or more goals on 13 separate occasions this season, 3 or more on 29. Twenty-nine.

Neutral fans across the country seem split over the outcome of the rumbling, pulsating title race. On the one hand you have the disproportionately wealthy newcomers with relatively little history and relatively few real supporters; on the other, the revitalised former juggernaut of English football, without a league title in 30 years. It’s tempting to see Liverpool lifting the trophy as the more emotionally evocative, and therefore more appealing, of the two potential outcomes. An understandable opinion, but by no means the only valid one…

Vincent Kompany was signed by the club a mere 18 days after the club’s takeover by Sheikh Mansour: the day when Manchester City became the Manchester City we know today. He’s been there for the entirety of this project. His staggering bolt from the blue in the 1-0 victory against Leicester in their penultimate fixture was like the clever sign off performed by the protagonist in the blockbuster immediately before they finish off the bad guy – it was City’s answer to their critics who said there would be no romance in their defence of the title.

Moments like these, along with the emergence of Phil Foden as one of English football’s most promising talents and Raheem Sterling as not only a world-class player, but a crusader for fairness and racial equality, will ensure that, whoever tops the table come Sunday, we’ve seen a staggering title race between two equally staggering and praiseworthy teams.

Written on 12th March, 2019, after a weekend of violence in English and Scottish football...

A rambunctious Second City derby was the backdrop for a shocking incident on Saturday in which Aston Villa captain Jack Grealish was punched from behind by a Birmingham City pitch invader. The man who carried out the attack, 27-year-old Paul Mitchell, was bundled off the pitch amidst protestations from justifiably incensed players on both sides. He was subsequently arrested and charged with both illegal encroachment onto the pitch and assault.

Clearly, the gods of football were watching – it turns out they don’t take kindly to such cowardly and unprovoked acts of violence. Grealish went on to score the winner with a low drive, 20-minutes from time. He later, in conversation with Aston Villa’s media team, described it as “one of the best days my life”.

Happily, unless you’re a Blues fan, a healthy dose of poetic justice was served up at St. Andrew’s on Saturday. But the issue of fan-on-player violence is one which runs much deeper than this incident in isolation. Indeed, in the very same weekend, Chris Smalling was shoved by an Arsenal fan during United’s defeat at The Emirates and Rangers captain James Tavernier was aggressively confronted by a spectator as his side’s drew with Hibs.

There has been near-universal condemnation from players, pundits and fans alike in the wake of these events. Phil Neville amongst others has called for point deductions for clubs whose ‘supporters’ are involved in such troubling instances. Others have called for the matches of offending fan’s teams to be played behind closed doors or hefty fines to be dished out to them by the F.A.

However, while it is important for justice, not only be done, but also to be seen to be done, footballing punishments will not be enough to dissuade knuckle-dragging Neanderthals like Paul Mitchell from such senseless acts of violence. For this shameful minority, the football is entirely secondary; an excuse for a scrap and a stage for them to express their painfully fragile masculinity with relative disregard for the score at the full-time whistle.

The root causes of violence in society are myriad and complex, far too big a problem to be tackled solely by the F.A. But what the governing body and club administrations do have a duty to do is recognise and address the empirical signposts of individuals who pose a risk to the safety of their players.

Social media, as with so many other problems in society, is the obvious starting point. Sites like Twitter and Facebook have the potential to mend the much-eroded fan-player relationship but often have a polarising effect, instead being used as a platform to spread reactionary and hate-fuelled vitriol.

Most players will tell you they don’t mind the abuse they get from fans, so long as it stops at the stadium gates. Sadly however, while abusing players in their day-to-day lives is not a new phenomenon, social media has given certain groups a platform to do so and, crucially, on a much larger scale.

There should be a zero-tolerance approach from clubs towards fans who explicitly threaten players via this or any other medium. Just as the game moved past the dark days of recurrent violence and racism in the 80s with modern policing techniques and improved technologies (CCTV, electronic ticketing etc), so the sport needs to adapt to these modern and increasingly pervasive threats to its honour. 

For many, going to the football is a release; a place where it’s socially acceptable for even the most mild-mannered of individuals to go red in the face with rage and express the repressed tribalism present in all of us. Unfortunately, there is some who seem incapable of recognizing the not-so-fine line between passionate exuberance and outright ant-social, criminal behaviour. Hopefully, in light of recent events, more will be done in the coming weeks and months to curb this embarrassing renaissance in archaic football violence. 

Written for The Courier’s music section.

Five studio albums, 10 mixtapes and a shedload of high-profile guest verses have taught us not to expect anything too left-field from a 2 Chainz release. His M.O when in album mode has tended to be to create moody, wacky and wall-to-wall Southern trap bangers. Rap or Go to the League, while still displaying some of these signature brushstrokes, is easily his most nuanced and artistically adventurous effort to date.

From the outset, the ex-basketballer experiments with bolder instrumentation choices. The darkly ethereal vocal loop on ‘Forgiven’ and the airy chipmunk-soul sample on ‘Threat 2 Society’ accommodate more subtle lyrical performances from an introspective and nostalgic 2 Chainz. He muses cathartically on being unjustly overlooked by the industry as well as the guilt and anxiety instilled by his former life as a drug dealer in Georgia. 

There is still a bevy of wilfully obnoxious and incisive club anthems (‘High Top Versace’, ‘Statue of Limitations’, ‘NCAA’), but they are executed with a virtuosic flourish.

This astute approach extends to his handling of abundant guest verses, an ever-present throughout 2 Chainz discography. 2 Chainz seems content to let his A-list friends borrow the spotlight. Kendrick’s whisper flow on ‘Momma I Hit a Lick’, Travis Scott’s cowbell accompanied autotuned vocals on ‘Whip’ and Chance’s sleepy delivery on ‘I’m Not Crazy, Life Is’ all being examples of letting his superstar contemporaries take the wheel.  

The commercial life-span of a rapper in today’s musical climate is fleeting, Rap or Go to the League exhibits a streetwise 41-year old 2 Chainz prepared to make compromises in order to maintain his relevancy. While it might not be as loud or abrasive as his previous work, creatively it makes a great deal more noise.

4/5

Written for The Courier.

Fernando Ovelar has this week become the youngest ever player and goal scorer in Paraguayan footballing history aged just 14.

The backdrop to this stunning achievement makes it all the more remarkable. Having made his senior debut the previous week, Ovelar netted the opening goal in, of all games, Paraguay’s Superclassico. The derby, contested between Paraguay’s two biggest clubs Cerro Porteno and Olimpia, is the country’s most iconic and fiercely contested fixture. Ovelar’s name will now become a permanent part of its folklore.

The current social media trend when someone so incredibly young does something so incredibly impressive is to ask: “what were you doing at __ years old?”. But in this case being 14 is such a distant memory for most people that they are unlikely to be able to provide an answer.  

The goal itself, a well-executed dink over an onrushing keeper, could easily have been that of a seasoned striker 10-15 years Ovelar’s senior. What struck me most about the goal however was not the quality of the finish, but how remarkably composed Ovelar looked immediately after scoring it. It might be that he was simply in a state of sheer disbelief at the frankly absurd situation he found himself in, but I have genuinely celebrated goals on FIFA with more gusto. Come to think of it, that’s probably many people’s answer to the aforementioned question “what were you doing at 14?”.

Of course, everyone, with the possible exception of Olimpia fans, should be happy for Fernando. And perhaps even the arch rivals of a team cannot begrudge a goalscorer who is, when all is said and done, a child.  To do so would be the footballing equivalent of storming out of the room when your nephew is winning the family’s traditional game of Christmas Monopoly.

Amongst all the talk of fairy-tales and potential superstardom however, there is a serious warning to be heeded for both player and club. In scoring before his fifteenth birthday, Ovelar joins a not-so-elite list of other former young footballing big wigs; Freddie Adu, Martin Odeegard and Mauricio Baldivieso to name a few. The poor fortunes of these players illustrate the fact that the phenomenon of boys playing in a man’s game is always, to some degree, problematic.

The psychological complications which arise as a result of child stars in any given field being given too much too soon are well documented. In sports however, there are also lesser explored issues regarding physicality. Imagine playing five-a-side and putting in a big, Vinnie Jones style tackle on a young teenager who happened to be playing. You would, at the very least, get a few funny looks.

In the modern game where physicality is increasingly emphasised, this is something which should be given due consideration. Players intentionally going out to hurt one another is a happening as old as the game itself, but when there is a 14-year-old involved it seems inherently wrong to do so. This holds true even if the said 14-year-old has the physical presence of a fully-grown man, as is the case with many of today’s young footballing talents.

A boy, two months shy of his fifteenth birthday, scoring in front of 45,000 adoring fans in the midst of an explosive derby day atmosphere is one of those surreal moments which only football can provide. The game has a duty to look after and nurture its precocious talent in order to ensure moments like these are not ultimately detrimental to the players themselves. Hopefully this will not be the case with Ovelar. Good luck, Fernando.

Written for The Courier but not published due to an editorial mix-up, by the time it was sorted out the story was unfortunately no longer in the news cycle.

Nearly everyone likes Marcelo Bielsa. Cut him and he’ll bleed football, that much is clear. Images, like the one currently doing the rounds on social media, of his shadow cast onto a backdrop of the meticulous preparation he and his staff conducted prior to their match with Derby County, only serve to amplify this legendary status. It somehow brings to mind the signal used by Gotham Police Department when they want to summon the Batman in times of crisis – Bielsa’s propensity for avant-garde tactics and off-field controversy have, I believe, endeared him to fans and earned him a similarly superhero status in the world of modern football.

It’s with some resentment therefore that I say I think he has received something of an easy ride during ‘Spygate’. The current trend seems to be to say that the whole thing is a bit of a storm in a teacup, something that only your proverbial ‘da’ is worried about, and to some extent this is true. I doubt Bielsa is the first manager in England to have used such covert tactics and in all likelihood won’t be the last. He shouldn’t face any disciplinary action either, he hasn’t broken any existing rules. He has, in reality, just been a bit of a shithouse…

However, had it been Tony Pulis or Neil Warnock, who perpetually face accusations of such shithousery, who had despatched spies to watch their opposition’s training sessions I suspect the reaction would have been more severe. Some might respond to this by saying the Argentine should get a pass because he is not well versed in the traditions and values of English football, as the previously mentioned managers clearly are. With regards to this I would echo Frank Lampard’s sentiments when he suggested Bielsa ought to have been more diligent in learning the sporting customs of the country in which he is managing.

Other Bielsa apologists have indignantly cried “journalists only care about spying when it’s someone else!” with reference to the media’s propensity to reveal England line ups on the eve of a major international tournament. This is obviously a legitimate grievance, but to suggest that this means Bielsa should get a pass is strange logic indeed. The same holds true for those suggesting that football should address diving and match fixing before it addresses stuff like this – why can’t we do both?

This whataboutery provides a perfect illustration of why people say football fans are so fickle: a few mystic images of the man stood in front of his admittedly impressive preparations and they are willing to abandon their supposedly deeply-held sporting principles. While the moral outrage from certain quarters has undoubtedly been over the top, surely a training ground should remain a sacred place, one where managers can prepare their teams in confidence. To this the riposte might be that this kind of thing has always happened. Again though, does this make it right?

It’s a shame, but the F.A would now be sensible to codify this principle to reflect these sporting values and to protect managers’ completely reasonable desire for privacy. All of this is not to say Bielsa is a villain however, we can forgive what is ultimately a small misdemeanour. Ultimately, the whole saga is more revealing of the attitudes prevalent in football fans and in certain journalistic circles than it is of anything else.

Written for the Courier’s music section.

As far as streaks in UK Hip Hop go, High Focus record’s current run of releases will take some beating. The label’s current monopoly over the underground scene is evidenced in the commercial success of poster boy, Ocean Wisdom. And, with the critical acclaim which greeted Fliptrix and Coops’s latest releases and now with Dabbla’s third album in as many years under the label, the train shows no sign of slowing down.

While Dabbla’s increasing commercial success is a more recent revelation, the former jungle MC has been homing his craft for well over a decade. As such, he could now accurately be described as a veteran in a scene where the artistic life span of so many is all too fleeting. This longevity owes itself to Dabbla’s approach to making music which is uncompromising, blasé and above all, fun. This approach unsurprisingly carries through to his latest album Death Moves. In fact, this loyalty to a certain tried and tested style is a theme that runs throughout the album itself. ‘Devil you know’ and ‘Same Old Me’ being the best example of Dabbla referencing this signature penchant for persistence.

However, this is certainly not to say Dabbla lacks in versatility on this project but rather that he has a delivery and flow which sounds equally at home over trap inspired cuts such as ‘F.U.T.D’ as it does over the more traditional boom-bap instrumentation featured on ‘Learnings’. This style is characterised by being as comedic as it is menacing, a fusion which commands the listener’s attention in a way of which not many rappers are capable.  You will find that, even after one listen, certain bars are already etched into the memory. ‘Tabula rasa, the geezer is ex communicada-the moody father of all of these little nooby barrers’ is a standout which, as well as being endlessly catchy, combines philosophical (Tabula rasa being John Locke’s idea of the human mind being a ‘blank slate’) and pop culture references (John Wick being kicked out of the international order of assassins at the end of John Wick 2 and labelled ex communicada) in trademark bragadoccious and tongue in cheek fashion.

As with most High Focus records, it is hard to find fault with ‘Death Moves’. The production is slick throughout and features an impressive array of genres. However, while this is clearly an intentional move by Dabbla who describes his music as a ‘hybrid’, it can at times make the transition from one track to the next a little jarring. Nonetheless, this is certainly only a minor fault and goes unnoticed unless one is actively trying to find a defect within the release.

Finally, it would be criminal to write a Dabbla review without mentioning the visuals which accompany it. Created, directed and financed by the man himself, the series of nine videos served as a hobby for Dabbla who describes them as a way of alleviating boredom and spending his surplus income. They are hilarious and mesmeric in equal measure. Definitely check them out if you appreciate a bit of surreality and humour in your music videos. All in all, Death Moves is just shy of an hour of thoroughly enjoyable, infectious UK Hip Hop. It is brimming with personality and, perhaps most appealingly, doesn’t take itself too seriously.

4.5/5

Written for The Courier

The old adage remains as true as ever, football really is a funny old game. In this instance in fact, it borders on the hilarious. In the summer of 2008, Ross McCormack was completing a thoroughly unglamorous free transfer from Motherwell to Cardiff. He was most likely aware that a few weeks prior, a young Jamaican called Usain Bolt smashed the 100m world record in New York with a staggering time of 9.72 seconds. 10 years on, Bolt has twice broken his own record and completed a famous clean sweep of gold medals in three consecutive Olympic games. McCormack spent the rest of his career in the Championship. During these years of relative mediocrity, the Scot, it is safe to say, probably did not imagine that while playing for Central Coast Mariners in Australia’s A-League, he would assist the world superstar’s first goal in professional football…

A well taken goal it was too, Bolt using his famed acceleration to race on to McCormack’s dinked through ball, taking the ball down on his knee before drilling a low shot past the keeper’s near post. Even in the wake of such a glittering career on the track, it was a fairy tale moment for Bolt who has long harboured an ambition to make the jump from athletics to football. As if this wasn’t enough, a few minutes later he added a second, walking the ball into the net following a mix up between opposition keeper and defender.

As always with Bolt, the spectacle and showmanship play a part. He wears the number 95 in honour of his 9.58 world record time and of course he celebrated his goal with his signature ‘lighting’ pose. He has, however, conducted himself with a characteristic not usually associated with one of the greatest athletes of all time: humility. Bolt, until now, has of course, never had reason to be humble. For over a decade he was utterly imperious in his field, winning everything it was possible to win. Now however, he finds himself in an unfamiliar situation. There is no doubt Bolt’s trial with the Mariners is fuelled by the media storm. The commercial benefits of having one of the most famous athletes in the world on your team are all too obvious. Bolt, and the staff at the Mariners, will be under no illusions that he is not currently of the standard to play professional football, at least not at this level. The two goals masked the fact that he looks uncomfortable on the ball and not at all a natural finisher.

Time will tell if Bolt’s venture into football will prove fruitful. Somehow, one suspects it will not. There is, however, something undeniably noble about an athlete of such stature opening themselves up to ridicule, valiantly placing themselves out of their comfort zone and into scenarios which test their abilities in ways which they have not previously been tested. Ultimately, this attribute which all great competitors have, to consistently challenge themselves, is what makes them great.

There is a wealth of athletes who have competed and excelled in multiple traditional Olympic sports. Although a phenomenon more prevalent before the modern era, it is one that still occurs. Notable contemporary examples can be seen in sportsmen and women who compete in events which have directly transferable skills such as swimming and water polo or volleyball and beach volleyball. While impressive however, going from one particular sport to a radically different one is surely more so.

An example of an athlete who made such a jump in the reverse fashion to Bolt (i.e. going from football to another sport) is Lev Yashin. The legendary Russian goalkeeper, as well as being one of the all-time great stoppers and the only player of his position to win the Ballon d’Or, also played ice hockey at international level. Yashin straddled these two disciplines in the 1950s and while in no way should this take away from his achievement, the nature of professional sport and the demands it makes on athletes has significantly evolved since. The physical demands and vast amounts of money at stake means it would be nigh on impossible for an athlete to participate, full time, in two sports simultaneously. Athletes who want the distinction of having competed in more than one sport then are only able to do so after their career in their primary sport has come to an end.

A contemporary example of an athlete who took a comparable route and who enjoys a similarly eminent reputation to Bolt can be seen with Michael Jordan. Like Bolt, Jordan is lauded as the greatest to ever compete in his sport. Not content with his domination of basketball, the former Chicago Bulls shooting guard wanted to fulfil a childhood dream of playing pro baseball and did so for the Chicago White Sox.  While Jordan did not excel, he was relatively competent at a relatively high level. A monumental achievement when one considers the fact that some dedicate their entire lives trying to make it in baseball and fail to do so. Michael Jordan walked into a professional team at the age of 31 with no meaningful previous experience and did not in any way disgrace himself. Plainly some are born naturally exceptional athletes with the ability to succeed in whichever sport they happen to choose. This is certainly something Bolt can take inspiration from.

One thing is for sure, this is not Soccer Aid. Bolt will find the footballing world is cutthroat and that no one, however distinguished their profile, has a divine right to success. That being said, I hope Bolt makes me and the rest of his doubters eat our words. It would be wonderful and comical in equal measure to see the fastest man in history taking on aging centre halves, perhaps in England’s lower leagues, on a regular basis.

Written for The Courier’s music section.

Vince Staples’ Big Fish Theory was, for many, one of the albums of 2017. A synthesis of house, garage and industrial techno polished with a subtle West Coast gloss, the project was an energizing and futuristic experience. It showcased, for the first time, Vince’s ear for truly innovative beats and did so without sacrificing delivery and lyricism, two qualities the Long Beach MC has always had in abundance.

His most engaging attribute however did not take centre stage. Vince is a funny man. Anyone who watches interviews or follows him on Twitter will be familiar with his trademark sardonic tone. Thankfully on FM! Vince allows this facet of his personality to come to the forefront. The project imitates a radio broadcast, playfully mocking the medium by which many of us consume music. Although not a radical concept, Vince certainly squeezes all the satirical juice from this particular fruit. The skits which link the album together as a concept have Vince’s finger prints all over them. He trolls his audience by teasing 20 second snippets of unreleased Earl Sweatshirt and Tyga tracks and, in a pop culture sideswipe, mimics a phone in quiz in which the contestant is asked to ‘name seven famous people whose name’s begin with V’. The contestant fails to mention Vince himself, or indeed anyone bar Vanessa Williams.

The hooks, featuring amongst others Jay Rock, E-40 and Kehlani, are the catchiest and most radio friendly that Vince has constructed to date. On a project focused specifically on radio itself however, this is unsurprising. The production, handled almost exclusively by Kenny Beats, is catchy yet unremarkable and takes a back seat to Vince’s nasal, sneering delivery of piercing one liners and tight, everchanging flows.

Had Vince Staples’ career been reaching its peak ten years ago, rather than in the current era of pink dreads, SoundCloud and Xanax, he’d have been one of the most eminent and revered artists in the genre. Releasing a concept album (if indeed you can call a project with a run time of 22 minutes an album) about radio in a streaming-centric climate is a brave move. But Vince has always been brave in his music. FM! acts as a bookmark, separating two distinct eras in terms of how we discover new music: the radio era and the streaming era. In this sense, and although the subject matter incorporated is nothing new to Vince’s discography, the project conveys a much more profound message than one might initially think.