Dizzee Rascal – Raskit
Grime elder statesman forsakes throwaway pop for righteous rap fury on sixth album.
On his sixth outing, grime’s first mainstream MC exposes pretenders to his crown. If 2013’s The Fifth was a rare, guest-heavy misstep that polished off rough edges to brazenly target a transatlantic audience, Raskit junks its predecessor’s egregious schmaltz for marauding bass and spartan trap backings. They amplify a biting double-time flow his nearest rivals would readily trade jaws for, Dizzee slaying his competition on Focus and Wot U Gonna Do? and literally eating them for dinner on Space (“Can’t find enough time to dine on rappers / All these MCs are looking like tapas”). There’s depth, too. Witness the intelligent anger of austerity lament Everything Must Go or a palpable crack in his voice on downbeat east London morality play Slow Your Roll. On such blazing evidence, he’s surely a shoo-in to headline Glastonbury 2019.
