Stormzy & Grime

 Hey Charlie, it's been quite a while,

Today I'm going to talk to you about an artist I've been fond of for some time now:

Stormzy (or Michael Ebenezer Kwadjo Omari Owuo Jr.) is a british rapper singer and songwriter.

I discovered Stormzy as some of my mates in London sent me his first popular freestyles "Shut up", "Know Me From" and "WickedSkengMan 4" that came out in 2015, and in which the rapper shows off his outstanding technical abilities as he plays with the skippy rhythm of grime instrumentals. 

 

I'm going to write a small section on grime for added context but you guys can skip to the next paragraph if you want to read on about Stormzy. Grime is a movement that emerged in London in the 2000s, it is characterised particularly by the musical genre it brought. The musical genre was inspired by American Hip-Hop, Drill and Garage music. It's usually characterised by a fast bpm (beats per minute), I believe it's said to be 144bpm minimum. But also by more aggressive sounds we usually find in electronic music. It was used mostly by young artists from poor backgrounds as a way to raise awareness about crime, racism and discriminations. The most popular grime artists in the UK were Dizzee Rascal, Wiley, and Lethal Bizzle, my personal favourite is Kano (I recommend the song "3 Wheel-ups"). However Grime is more than a musical genre as its influence could be felt also through fashion (streetwear), and other forms of art such as dance and graffiti.

The first generation of Grime rappers I mentionned above inspired many others in the UK and today dozens of very successful British artists keep the movement going. For instance JME and his brother Skepta who unlike many others who turned to a more mainstream form of rap (for example the rappers Dave and Fredo), remain very loyal to grime. Stormzy also started out freestyling over grime beats, although he does write many other genres of rap too. Back to Stormzy :

Since his 2015 freestyles the singer songwriter from Croydon has produced two incredible albums : "Gang Signs & Prayer" in 2017, and "Heavy is the Head" in 2019.I am a big fan of these two albums that I discovered as they came out. 

The first of the two was Stormzy's first big success, the name of the album (Gang Signs & Prayer) comes from two big influences of his childhood (Gangs & violence, and Religion) as he explained in an interview. He brought each of these influences through the album, especially with songs like "Big for your Boots" where he expresses the violence in which he grew up, and other songs like "Blinded By Your Grace Pt. 2" (WHICH I VERY STRONGLY RECOMMEND) that resembles a prayer with the organ and the chorus sung by a choir. The contrast between these two worlds is great.

The second album is very recent, it came out in 2019. In this second album (Heavy is the Head) he talks about the pressure of being an international artist and compares it to the weight of the crown a king would wear. I particularly appreciate the diversity of the songs he offers as we saw in the first album. For instance there are grime songs like "Audacity" featuring Headie One, hits like "Vossi Bop", inspirational songs like "Superheroes", and more songs in which he sings as well as raps like "Crown".

Stormzy's talent has been recognised as he has won many awards over the last decade. After his freestyle "Shut up" blew up on Youtube, he was awarded the best grime act at the MOBO awards. His albums Gang Signs & Prayer reached number 1 in the UK, and he won the British Album of the Year at the 2018 Brits with it. His song "Vossi Bop" was the first UK number 1 single and he performed it at the 2019 Glastonbury Festival. 

The visibility he got allowed him to collaborate with other superstars such as Burna Boy, Skrillex, Linkin Park, Ed Sheeran, and he also turned down a collaboration ith Jay-Z (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SrOVqP3iAI 2:38). He also got the chance to collaborate with a football club ! As he is a very big fan of Manchester United, he collaborated with the club to produce a release video in 2016 with the arrival of Paul Pogba at the club, I love the video : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WnuK6r2-ziM

 

That was my article about one of my favourite artists all around. Thanks for reading, and for those who would like to listen to some of his music, my top 10 Stormzy songs is below (there are many recurring swear words) :

1. Blinded By Your Grace, Pt. 2

2. WickedSkengMan 4

3. Crown 

4. Big For Your Boots

5. Nigo Duppy (not on spotify)

6. One Take Freestyle

7. Wiley Flow 

8. First Things First 

9. Cold

10. Dude