Mac Lloyd – Hopeless Sinners
Something different from the Green Brick camp. Warm, mellow vibes courtesy of latest signing, Mac Lloyd. ‘Hopeless Sinners’ is taken from Mac’s debut release Tired Eyes.
Dizraeli – ‘Oi Oi’ Single Launch Party – Review
On a stage crammed full of four musicians and an array of instruments, Dizraeli stands at the centre, with only about a metre square of free space to perform. This does nothing to hold him back as, over the course of the night, this small space is transformed into a sonically rich and immersive environment. Dizraeli’s infectious energy spills out into the room as he moves about frantically, playing percussion on everything from a djembe to the mic stand.
Introducing his latest project The Unmaster at Redon in London last Friday, the Bristol rapper explains that its creation was an extremely personal journey for him, following him over two years through an especially trying period in his life. In particular, he mentions how the process of making The Unmaster helped overcome his own difficulties in embracing imperfection; something Dizraeli is quick to point out the humour in, considering he’s a self-proclaimed perfectionist. However, this is exactly the point that The Unmaster sets out to make: Dizraeli’s performance here takes us to a place where perfection is irrelevant. As he progresses through this album of spasmodic rhythms and eclectic sounds a method to its madness begins to emerge, a sort of order-in-disorder that conveys his music in its raw and immediate form. This is particularly apparent in the album’s single ‘Oi Oi’, which enlists an eccentric collection of samples and drum rhythms that seem equal parts method and madness; perfectly encapsulating the mental trip that his listeners are soon to embark on. Here, as elsewhere on the album, Dizraeli’s potent lyricism serves as an extension of this beautiful unhinging of sound. Riddling off phrases that feel plucked from the very depths of his consciousness, Dizraeli’s verses often wrap in on themselves with disjointed enjambment, conveying a sense of inner turmoil with such compelling musicality that it blurs the line between order and disorder yet again.
All this talk of challenging imperfections points to the very intimate creative space that The Unmaster comes from. Dizraeli mentions at the beginning of the show that this project was written almost entirely alone by him in one room in his house and this visual is powerfully conveyed on-stage. While his contagious rhythms pour throughout the venue, Dizraeli can’t help but seem slightly vulnerable as he leads us through some of his darkest moments. Looking back at the crowd, the level of immersion was palpable. With bodies contorting and swaying in all directions one could be forgiven for thinking they had walked into an experimental dance class rather than a gig in East London. This is clearly a vindication of what Diz intended this album to be. Having successfully crowd-funded for a series of music videos and a theatre show to add visual dimensions to the project, The Unmaster aims to embody performance to its fullest and it is a resounding success to see the crowd follow him into his wacky world of movement and sound so willingly.
While still very much the familiar Dizraeli that we all know and love—that “weird guy playing the djembe” releasing primal surges of energy—this album feels like a maturation in his artistry. Dizraeli has never shied away from personal subjects in his music but here he appears to confront his own psyche more confidently than ever before. Watching him deal with a light-hearted heckler that night (“I would have paid £20 for this!”/ “You got punked”) it was hard not to feel in awe of the man. From the moment he stepped on stage, he exuded an effortless honesty in all aspects of his performance, whether he be riddling off lyrics, playing one of his various percussion instruments or channelling the music through his very movements. This latest chapter in Dizraeli’s career feels genuinely special, with a new cohort of instrumentalists and a creative maturity that is an outright spectacle to witness. Be sure not to miss the release of The Unmaster this August but for the full experience, keep an eye out for announcements on his upcoming tour.
You can catch Dizraeli with his band this summer at Boomtown, Shambala and Larmer Tree and more. The Unmaster is set for release this August, with a full UK and European tour to follow. Check our feature on Dizraeli’s story so far here.
Photos by Katarzyna Boreq
Oliver Sudden – Rappertag Season 3 Episode 8
Oliver Sudden got tagged in by TPS Fam for the 8th Episode of Rappertag Season 3. The Cronx Don summarizes ten years deep in the game! Find out who gets tagged in next…
Datkid & Leaf Dog – Cook Book
Confessions of a Crud Lord is out now. To celebrate the self confessed crud addict drops a fresh visual courtesy of This and That Media for ‘Cook Book’
Get the album here
Illitamin G – Landing
Fresh off of his signing to High Focus as part of Brighton heavyweight rap trio the CMPND, Vitamin G has been on a roll recently and shows no signs of slowing down. This time working alongside producer Illiterate, Vitamin G rocks a more mellow tone on ‘Landing’ that feels completely at home in Illiterate’s silky smooth soundscape. For more spaced-out chill-hop goodness cop their full project Illitamin G now here.
slowthai – Inglorious ft. Skepta
Dropping only a day ahead of the release of his much-awaited album Nothing Great About Great Britain, ‘Inglorious’ continues what has been one of the most creative promo campaigns we have seen in recent years. Enlisting the undeniable force that is Skepta, slowthai is steady doing what he does best here: genre-bending sounds, cinematic visuals and, of course, performing topless.
Dizraeli: The Story So Far
Almost from the very start of his career, Dizraeli, real name Rowan Sawday, has found a way of capturing the essence of what it is to be human and wrapping it exquisitely within his music. Fans of the Bristol-born artist undoubtedly respect him as one who has always seemed to speak his truth, and viewed the world through a critically honest, playful, loving lens. Almost two decades on from the beginning of his musical career, he has reached a very exciting point. With an impressive depth of work behind him that is yet to find itself in the mainstream, he has transformed his approach to making music and is asserting himself as one of the most innovative, important (and at the time of writing, underrated) artists in the scene right now. Following an exciting tour for his theatre project, and with the release of his highly-anticipated album fast approaching, we take a look at Dizraeli’s artistic journey to date.
One of the first elements of Dizraeli’s musical career took shape as a club night in Bristol. Bad Science was a night, co-hosted by Dizraeli, Alex Crane, and another friend from his home town, incorporating a multi-genre mix of hip hop, drum and bass, jazz and reggae. The night began in Bristol and moved to Brighton where Bad Science developed into a band comprised of two essential elements: Dizraeli and Alex. Amongst a variety of genres, the Bad Science sound took influence from drum and bass, jazz and hip hop. Bad Science is demonstrative of the early days of the politically, spiritually and emotionally conscious lyricism that has developed into Dizraeli’s unique rawness that, for many, sets him apart as an artist. “For me hip hop was always about taking a philosophical stance and putting across certain ideas in a way that looking back on I find slightly cringe inducing”. Dizraeli refers to ‘Bare Bones’, the Bad Science track in which he reads out a classic Rumi poem, The Guest House. “I was a very preachy rapper at that time…I was an earnest young hippy making music, and pretty arrogant with it”. Bad Science released four EP’s in their time together. Ten years on from their first event, the end of an era was in sight. Dizraeli, who has taken influence from a multitude of sources, including the likes Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix and The Roots, began to take an interest in folk music.
In 2008, Dizraeli went on a journey through Eastern Europe, India, Iran and Turkey with his girlfriend at the time, Laura. It was then, writing songs and experimenting with new instruments, that the landmark album for his folk-hop sound was born. Engurland (City Shanties) draws on traditional English folk, English and American sea shanties, the extensive variety of folk music he was exposed to on his travels, and hip hop. Of the music he heard while travelling, Dizraeli describes a consistent rawness that was tied together with percussion and vocal harmonies. It was this that he wanted to incorporate with what he loves about hip hop; the lyricism, the beat and samples (his almost always being homegrown). As within his musical career at large, Dizraeli’s closeness to hip hop ebbs and flows throughout the album. The opening track, ‘Homeward Bound (On the Overground)’, draws us in with the unmistakably sea shanties sound of washing waves and male voices in chorus with one another. In comes the intricate picking of an acoustic guitar and a hip hop beat that runs below layers of wind instruments, vocal samples and those seductive, body-bopping scratches. Engurland encompasses what Dizraeli describes as a “totally rag tag assortment of sounds”. From the stripped back, acoustic delicacy of tracks like ‘Take Me Dancing’ into which vocal harmonies of Cate Ferris (who went on to be a member of Dizraeli and the Small Gods) are sewn, to the single ‘Bomb Tesco’, which harbours a more evident hip hop influence, and is glorious in its hand-crafted, primal way of being.
Dizraeli’s next album came in 2012 in the form of White Man (Moves), a 10-track collaborative project with Tom Caruana on the beats. In one sense, White Man (Moves) is the musical documentation of the same four month journey that contributed to the formation of Engurland. In another, it’s a critical view of the history you carry as a white, western male travelling abroad. “[White Man (Moves)] was about the really powerful sense of being a middle class, white person from a colonising country, travelling through countries that my country had colonised”, it’s also a homage to the kindness and the courage of those he met along the way. From start to finish, the album is embedded with field recordings captured by himself as he and Laura travelled from southern India through to Pakistan, Iran, through Turkey, across Europe and, in time, back to the UK. More so than in Engurland, White Man (Moves) seems to incorporate music influenced by, and samples drawn from, the places he had travelled. Much like the album as a whole, the first single, ‘People Taking Pictures’, acts as a satirical commentary on Western tourism and his own experience as a pale-faced traveller.
Having formed in 2009 to tour Engurland, Dizraeli and the Small Gods released their first single in 2012. That first single, ‘Never Mind’, was lifted from Moving in the Dark; the groups debut project, which came in 2013. The album is a development of the evocative, nourishing, and simultaneously challenging style of Dizraeli’s; this time with the backing of an eight-strong team of musicians, vocalists and sound designers. Just short of two years on, following release of the Everyone’s a Winner mixtape (a powerful collaboration with Dj Downlow in which he arguably stretches his hand as firmly into hip hop as he has to date), came ‘The Depths’; a cryptic, frenzied response to the his internalised homophobia. ‘The Depths’ was written and released from inside of the closet, and contrary to what he had wished, the songs lyrically coded nature did not suffice for it to be understood beyond a broad criticism of homophobia, but as a message about himself. He explained, “Even though I was making a video, making a song that was critical of homophobia, I was still trapped by homophobia myself. I wasn’t saying the thing which was ‘I am actually bi-sexual’”, a challenge that seemed out of reach at that time.
It’s far from fresh news that homophobia within hip hop has been, and truthfully, still is, rife. Despite there being a small subsection of gay rappers in the UK, including names such as Q-Boy and RawZilla, generally speaking, it has felt that non-straight artists have stood somewhat separately from the bulk of the scene. With some of the most prolific rappers having been known to make homophobic remarks in their music, and with a sense of hyper-masculinity still running throughout hip hop, it’s unsurprising that for rappers within the LGBTQ community, there is a fear that to be open about their sexuality would be to categorise themselves away from the rest of their genre. For Dizraeli, coming out about his sexuality meant running the risk of losing some of his identity as an artist to being labelled the ‘bisexual rapper’. “In UK hip hop no one’s not straight” he explained, “It’s still a culture which is heavily macho. Although I’ve never really been in with the UK hip hop crowd in a sense, for some reason that really mattered to me. I didn’t want to be bracketed”.
Almost four years after he came out to a crowd of 4,000 people at Shambala, Dizraeli’s status is developing as a significant figure in starting conversations about masculinity, sexuality and mental health. After six years with the Small Gods, he left the group to make a solo album, and found himself in the midst of a mental collapse, unable to create. Reaching out from the dark place he was in, he started seeing a therapist, practising meditation, and speaking about what was really going on for him. As he began to come to terms with what he was experiencing, he started creating music again. After the course of a two year struggle, his work rate and creativity began to soar, and eventually he had written and recorded his biggest solo project to date.
While 2016 saw the release of his solo Eat My Camera EP, and the Leroy Merlin EP with Downlow and Nathan Feddo in 2017, The Unmaster is Dizraeli’s first solo album for ten years. It’s sister to a theatre project which shares the same title; a name that challenges the idea that we must be king of ourselves, or that we must know and be able to cope with things alone. It says that is okay to reach out, and that there is strength within truth and weakness. The album is set to take us through the artists mental collapse, almost from start to finish, beginning with the experience of being within a breakdown, through to the journey of getting out of one, all in a world that, in his words, is “the absolute perfect storm for mental illness”. Despite the rawness and honesty he seems to have conveyed within his previous work, Dizraeli described this project as the first album that feels truly his. “The Unmaster is the first record I’ve ever finished where I’m like, ‘This is it. This is the best I can do. This is actually me. This music is something I am proud of and can stand beside and behind. I can’t do any better than this’. I literally feel that as an artist I am just arriving”.
As well as being his biggest project yet, The Unmaster is the first album Dizraeli produced by himself. In his usual eclectic, innovative manner, it draws influence from garage, grime, jazz and west African percussion. It sees contributions from names such as Chango and Jakaboski from Strangelove, Bellatrix, and Danalogue. The mix-down was done by Dilip Harris, who has mixed albums for some of the greatest names in hip hop, including Gang Starr, The Roots and A Tribe Called Quest. Its sister project, The Unmaster theatre show, was born in the early days of the album writing process. In 2017, Dizraeli was asked by Boomtown to do a performance in their Speakers Corner, to which he came with pages of diary entries and other written pieces from throughout his breakdown. “The response [to the performance] was really overwhelming” Diz explained, “From men particularly…crying in my arms. Most men have almost never seen a man cry—almost never. I have almost never seen a man cry in my life, and so to me, having men come up to me and cry in my arms after reading this stuff is crazy.” From there, those readings, some of which are set to be found webbed within the album, became the base of The Unmaster theatre project. It was then contributed to by things people had said to him in response to a fundraising tour in the beginning of 2018, which found him performing in people’s living rooms, attics and basements. With the money from the tour, as well as an arts fundraising grant, The Unmaster developed into a full-scale theatre project. While it remains an entity of its own, the theatre project is closely entwined with the album. The show premiered in London late last year. It featured a live band, lots of dancing, and a definitive focus on speaking about suffering; dismantling the idea that we have to be masters of ourselves.
After crowdfunding over £20,000 to fully push the album and the project that surrounds it, the beginning of February saw the release of ‘Madness’, the first single taken from The Unmaster. ‘Madness’, in a sense, feels resonant with the sort of primal mayhem Dizraeli demonstrated in his early days with tracks such as ‘Bomb Tesco’, but with a substance entirely of its own. The track speaks of the ironic disconnection we’re experiencing within a supposedly connected modern world, and of being somewhere between observer and participant as it seems to be losing its mind. Frantic and impassioned, the accompanying video sees him losing it as he stares into his phone in a dark and empty room. Those same themes of technological intrusion and frenzied movement are carried forward in the second single from the album, ‘Oi Oi’. The track, and the video in which Dizraeli collaborates with dancer Maeva Berthelot, capture the chaos of the world in the 21st century as he asks the question we all have in our heads right now; “can anybody please explain what the f*ck is happening?”. Dizraeli’s reflections and his movement towards a glitch hop sound will surely resonate with anyone who’s been feeling desensitised by the state of the world right now.
So 2019 is the year of The Unmaster. While he prepares for this leg of his journey, he’s turning his focus inwards, remembering that whatever happens with this project doesn’t define his worth. His focus musically? In his words, “playing this really wicked music live, with other people … playing a whole pile of instruments on stage and getting to dance; seeing what it feels like to be out there performing as me rather than as this invention.”
Dizraeli will be celebrating the release of ‘Oi Oi’ with a launch party on Friday the 17th of May. It’ll be his first ever show with his full band and is set to be a banger, you can grab tickets for that here. Summer is set to be busy as he tours festivals with his band. You can catch him at the likes of Boomtown, Shambala and Larmer Tree to name a few. August will see the album’s highly anticipated release, with a UK tour to follow through September and October, and a European tour in the pipelines for the winter – keep an eye out for the official announcement coming soon.
Images by Fabrice Bourgelle
Datkid & Leaf Dog – Confessions of a Crud Lord – Review
If there’s one man in Britain who can truly claim to not give a fuck, it’s Datkid. The Bristol emcee has made a career out of saying the unsayable and throwing two thoroughly pungent fingers to convention. Now back with his third album, Datkid is ready to cement his reputation as the king of crud.
Despite being regularly touted as ‘one to watch’, Datkid has been earning accolades as part of the Split Prophets crew since 2012. Since then he’s dropped two fire LPs (including the instant classic Teeth Ledger) and guested on some of the dirtiest tunes of the past five years.
The rapper’s persona is built on pushing boundaries, and he delights in spitting the most outrageous flows possible. Look beyond the shock value, however, and you’ll find a man at the top of his game. As you’d guess from the album title, Confessions of a Crud Lord is gritty, grimy and grubbier than a McDonald’s toilet at 3 am. Bars land like a rusty shank between the ribs. Tracks like ‘Eyes’ (with some reliably insane bars from NY heavyweight Conway The Machine) and ‘Heroin’ leave you reeling like a tightrope walker with vertigo.
Even considering the lyrical deftness of Confessions, the secret ingredient here is Leaf Dog’s reliably slick production. The album hangs on Datkid’s effortless delivery, but the soundscapes composed by the Four Owls’ producer make it. From the Mediterranean-infused instrumentals of ‘Hoes’ to the rapid-fire bars of ‘Myth’, Leaf Dog’s presence propels Confessions from another quality Datkid release to a thing of (admittedly cruddy) beauty.
So sure – it’s fair to say that Datkid doesn’t give a shit what you think, but it would be unwise to assume he doesn’t care about anything. His verbal dexterity and gloriously depraved lyrics single him out as a master of the craft, and he’s clearly striving to carve out his own corner. With Confessions of a Crud Lord, Datkid has proven if something’s worth doing, it’s worth doing right. After all, as he says on ‘Blank Page’: “What’s the point in living if you’re just surviving?”
Confessions of A Crud Lord drops on the 17th of May on High Focus Records. Grab yourself a pre-order here.
Lazy Eyez – UKHH Bars
We linked Lazy Eyez in Bournemouth for some exclusive bars over a Physiks beat at Family Ink Tattoo Studio. Shouts to the Green Brick Family!
IYDK: Deeq – Unholy War
People say science has rendered religion obsolete. Whether or not that’s true, I’d argue religion is still a viable tool for telling stories about the world. Just look at the new EP from Deeq. With Unholy War, the Oxford rapper paints a dark picture of a world gone mad. But this isn’t some biblical fable, it’s a tale of contemporary Britain, told through the allegory of holy legends.
Like Seraphim & Appollyon, the side project of Deeq and Stone Circle labelmate Flowtecs, Unholy War punctuates razor sharp flows with sinister theological symbolism. It’s there in the twisted spirituality of ‘Affirmations’ and the venomous bars of ‘Snakes’.
But Unholy War is also very much about what’s happening right here, right now. It’s a smart move that gives the EP a depth missing from many modern artist’s skillset. After all, you can spit hard bars, but if it’s just the same old nonsense then people will soon switch off.
Guest bars from Menace Mendoza and Macular add some variety to the flows, but this is Deeq’s testament, and he doesn’t hold back. “Shed a tear when I recall what I did // saw caught up on ABH charges was only 15 so I didn’t catch a bid” he wraps on closer ‘Troubled Waters’.
There’s an enjoyable disparity between the religious imagery and industrial instrumentals found in Unholy War. Producer Tom SQNC sticks to boom bap beats but mixes up each track and keeps the listener guessing to the end. Hazy Blade Runner style synths sit alongside simple piano loops and Gregorian chanting. Deeq traverses these desolate soundscapes with ease, spitting bars like a sacrilegious shaman.
Regardless of what you think of Deeq’s focus on religious imagery, there’s no denying the skill on show here. So it’s up to you; come for the metaphors, the lyrical precision or the boom bap beats, but don’t pass up the opportunity to hear Unholy War for yourself.
Unholy War is out now on Stone Circle Records. Check it out here.