Album of the week with Slowthai: The Robbie Williams of British rap

2023-03-03T17:29:51.088Z

Don't call it crossover! The British precarious rapper Slowthai shows the courage to be ugly on "Ugly" and empowers himself with his rock music roots - our album of the week. And: News from Helge Schneider.

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Rapper Slow Thai

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George Muncey / Universal Music

Album of the week:

Slowthai – »Ugly«

Tyron Kaymone Frampton aka Slowthai, celebrated UK rapper with two top ten albums and numerous awards under his arm, has always been a rock 'n' roll star at heart.

So far, you just didn't notice it in his music.

Otherwise, almost everything was right: the notoriously lewd, crash-threatening appearance at the NME Awards 2020, which brought him a shitstorm and accusations of misogyny, the snotty punk tone against the British establishment and classism in the kingdom, the theme of his harsh, groundbreaking debut "Nothing Great About Britain" was.

Frampton has now come full circle with his third album in four years.

»Ugly« not only musically embraces a few ugliness that he thought had been overcome, it is also the abbreviation for the motto »U Got To Love Yourself«, which he had tattooed under his left eye as a new life mantra.

Doesn't make him any prettier.

»Ugly« is his most elaborate album to date, even if this time he scales back the social criticism even more in favor of self-reflection than on his second album »Tyron«, on which he ironically stylized himself into a canceled cartoon figure.

An aborted attempt at therapy later, Slowthai, who has meanwhile become a father, is at the center of the songs, who claims to have learned to respect himself, regardless of what others say.

And yes, it's "songs" that Frampton, 28, wrote this time, some even on piano or guitar.

In many ways, "Ugly" marks the musician's deeply analytical return to his youth in the drab council houses of Northampton, north of London, where his Barbadian mother raised him and his younger brother, who died young, alone.

A fan of rock bands like Nirvana and Radiohead, Frampton studied music technology at the city's state college and dreamed of fronting a rock group.

But the indie and skater kids at school didn't want to let the annoying, nervous ghetto kid play along at all, didn't take him seriously.

His stage name derives from the derisive nickname "Slow Ty" because he spoke slowly and with a thick accent.

So Frampton turned to rap and hip-hop, the great self-empowerment machine of many precarious artists.

The beats and his talent for hard-hitting rhymes brought him success, which he used to put together a band of his choice - and finally being able to play the alternative rock he had always dreamed of.

But of course he also stays true to his rap skills.

Don't call it crossover!

However, one cannot completely ignore the much-maligned rap-rock genre from the late 1990s when looking at »Ugly«.

But maybe Slowthai is just right in the revival trend, even if some things seem strangely outdated.

»Yum«, for example, the first track on the album, which once again reviews the excesses of coke and alcohol, the self-hatred and self-destruction of recent years.

The accompanying electronic pinball music thumps and thumps along with his rap vocals in such a retro-industrial way that you might think you've strayed onto a long-forgotten Prodigy album.

The song ends with a bloodcurdling, apparently liberating primal scream.

This not only manifests frustration at his own shortcomings of the past,

After that it's less disruptive, but stays true to the Judgment Day soundtrack era with sirens and guitar drones in »Selfish«.

In addition, he mixes indie rock choirs that tie in with later songs such as "Ugly", "Falling" or, over-theatrically, "Tourniquet", in which Frampton howls and roars so crookedly and brutally, as if he wanted the libertines from the baroque era Rock history shake.

"Never Again," one of his best comebacks from his irresponsible bully days, is a ballad whose songwriting stretches after his declared Britpop role model Damon Albarn and ends with a lad version of Kae Tempest.

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All this is not beautiful in the sense of aesthetics, but it has a strangely touching energy that makes you listen, from which a basically likeable underdog personality speaks, who can also cause gross mischief, you still want to cuddle her.

In that sense, Slowthai is something like the Robbie Williams of British kitchen sink rap.

The naïve-looking poetry album sayings that run through the lyrics of all songs also fit in with this: »When life gives you lemons/ keep your head upright«, says »Ugly«.

Or: »Even when you're fed up/ Stack your bread up high/ Everything ain't nice like cherry pie.« Could also come from Winnie the Pooh.

Produced to be enjoyed, the beastly-hearty style hybrid was created by Dan Carey, one of the sound creators of Britain's recent post-punk boom.

Slowthai perceives the outside world as fundamentally »fucked up«, exacerbated by the war in Ukraine, which he addresses in the title track.

But even under the darkest of circumstances, you have to pull yourself together and remember that in the end you're fine, that's his new credo.

And if you doubt it, you have to convince yourself, as he does autotherapeutically on "Feel So Good," a crude mix of The Cure vibe and Gorillaz modernity.

“I feel so good/ I feel so good/ I feel so good” he repeats endlessly in the chorus.

If it helps...

(7.9)

Listened briefly:

Kate NV - »Wow«

Kate Shilonosova is the Russian pop artist the world needs right now - because the music on her fourth album as Kate NV is so surprisingly upbeat.

In an interview, the musician, who no longer lives in her homeland, worried that the playful sound of »Wow« between electronics, jazz and curious samples might irritate in view of the Russian war of aggression.

"I was afraid that people would question how I can make this light-hearted and fun music right now."

What she is experiencing herself is anything but happy.

But “maybe it can help someone else feel light, warm, and happy again.” Last year, she released an album of older recordings, the proceeds of which went to an aid organization for Ukrainian refugees.

Before that, their most ambitious album to date, »Room for the Moon«, had been released.

Shilonosova's music, now more experimental but always cleverly thought out, draws on a time when Russia was even more open to cultural influences.

In the 1990s, she became addicted to »Sailor Moon« and Japanese pop and anime culture, so her music often sounds like a synesthetic child with wide eyes and ears perceiving the chaotic environment as sounds and melodies.

For tracks like "Confessions at the Dinner Table," Kate NV continues to use a sample pack of deliberately detuned instruments, as well as self-recorded sounds of clinking glasses, giggling and chuckling, or, in "Meow Chat," a kitten meowing.

With this musical

Shilonosova's music, now more experimental but always cleverly thought out, draws on a time when Russia was even more open to cultural influences.

With this musical

Shilonosova's music, now more experimental but always cleverly thought out, draws on a time when Russia was even more open to cultural influences.

With this musical

when Russia was even more open to cultural influences.

With this musical

when Russia was even more open to cultural influences.

With this musical

as if a synaesthetically gifted child would perceive the chaotic environment as tones and melodies with wide open eyes and ears.

With this musical

as if a synaesthetically gifted child would perceive the chaotic environment as tones and melodies with wide open eyes and ears.

With this musical

Is cat content

supposed to make the world feel a little better for at least one album length?

Wow!

But why not?

(7.5)

Sabrina Bellaouel - »Al Hadr«

Sabrina Bellaouel was also inspired by animated heroines in the 1990s. Princess Jasmine from Disney's »Aladdin« in particular became a role model for her as a young girl: »Deep down inside, Jasmine struggles to fit into traditions and old ways of thinking.

She really wants to be heard and loved, not just seen.

As an Arab producer in the very masculine, white world of French music, I can empathize with them," she said in an interview.

On her debut album, the Franco-Algerian musician incorporates traditional Arabic music and Muslim spirituality into a very urban, western R&B and hip-hop context.

Again and again she counters the sensual flow with disruptive elements - just like the everyday striving for harmony,

what the lyrics are primarily about, which is repeatedly confronted with breaks;

"Al Hadr" means "the present time".

So unpredictable breaks beats, jangling synth sounds or samples in ballads like »Body« or »Shop«, which breaks into an English spoken word part in the middle, then clacking, clicking and stunningly sluggishly falling back into the groove rolls back.

"Period Point Blank" is a suggestive-spherical dance track that is reminiscent of the similarly experimental US musician Kelela, "Eclipse" could have the potential for a club classic as an oriental accented house banger.