Slowthai drops new album, Nothing Great About Britain. Available for download and streaming, Slowthai’s music project lists 24 tracks. The Northampton rapper spent the majority of 2018 recording the record in East London – and it’s packed with an all-star line up of guests and producers.
Nothing Great About Britain is far more than a political manifesto written over squelching grime beats. It’s reflective, often lush, and, at times, touching. “Gorgeous” is a gurning nostalgia trip and “Crack” is an exhausted love song.
The album title is tattooed on Ty’s torso, but both on skin and on record it’s more a provocation than a declaration — a challenge to nasty British masculinity, parochialism, and Brexit-bolstered xenophobia.
“Hand on my heart, I swear I’m proud to be British,” he bellows on the title track, and he means it. He loves the country’s “fighting spirit,” “the summer days where everyone gets in their shorts even though it’s fucking 15 degrees,” the sense of community; he hates “the empire we built when we raped and took millions and stole everyone’s culture,” right-wing extremists like Tommy Robinson, the skinheaded racists who seem to multiply every week.
Listen and download Nothing Great About Britain by Slowthai below.
Download Slowthai – Nothing Great About Britain