In the past few years, artists such as Fredo, Meekz and Country Dons have all netted large fanbases with a blend of gritty road rap and modern trap. Really, they’re treading a path first worn by Blade Brown, whose late-00s link-ups with Giggs and revered run of Bags & Boxes mixtapes laid down a template for the UK’s own strain of gangsta rap. On Joints, his new mixtape with fellow south Londoner K-Trap, he sets the record straight: “Think you’ve tapped into the streets, but we a little closer,” he rumbles on La Cosa Nostra.
K-Trap made his name, balaclava-clad, in the drill scene, but has since settled into slower tempos that give his snippy delivery space to breathe, and he’s Blade’s newest sparring partner. They make for an inspired intergenerational pairing, swapping brooding verses over bruising kick drums. Their flows sit like sides of the same crisp £50 note: K-Trap’s rising inflections dovetail with Blade’s low growl, his delivery brimming with the contentedness of someone who’s just devoured a particularly rich meal.
Closing track Each One, Teach One – its title lifted from a proverb shared among enslaved African people denied education in the US, now suffused into African and Caribbean culture more widely – captures the essence of the album: an old hand showing a young peer how to navigate the trappings of a cut-throat industry, with no compromise on style.