Hoodies All Summer
“It feels quite sinister,” Kano tells Apple Music about the title of his exceptional sixth album, *Hoodies All Summer*. “But a hoodie’s also like a defense mechanism—a coat of armor, protection from the rain. It’s like we always get rained on but don’t worry, we’re resilient, we wear hoodies all summer. We’re prepared for whatever.” That description is fitting for 10 songs that tear down stereotypes and assumptions to reveal the humanity and bigger picture of life in London’s toughest quarters. On “Trouble” that means reflecting with nuance and empathy on the lives being lost to postcode wars and knife and gun crime. “People become so used to the fact that these situations happen that they are almost numb to it,” he says. “Young kids dying on the street—it gets to a point where it’s like you lose count, and you just move on really quickly and forget a person’s name two minutes after hearing about it.” Like 2016’s *Made in the Manor*, this is an album rooted in his experiences of living in East London. This time, though, the focus is less introspective, with Kano, as he says, “reversing the lens” toward the communities he grew up in. “I just wanted to speak about it in a way where it\'s like, ‘I understand, I get it.’ I\'ll get into the psyche of why people do what they do. It’s about remembering that these unfortunate situations come about because of circumstances that are out of the hands of people involved. Not everyone’s this gang-sign, picture-taking, hoodie-wearing gang member. That’s the way they put us across in the media. Yes, some people are involved in crime, and some people are *not*—they just live in these areas, and it’s a fucked-up situation.” Kano’s at his poetic and potent best here. Lines such as “All our mothers worry when we touch the road/\'Cause they know it’s touch-and-go whether we’re coming home” (“Trouble”) impact fast and deep, but he also spotlights hope amid hard times. “I feel like we’re resilient people and there’s always room for a smile and to celebrate the small wins, and the big wins,” he says. “That’s when you hear \[tracks\] like \'Pan-Fried\' and \'Can\'t Hold We Down\'—you can\'t hold us down, no matter what you do to us, you can\'t stop us. We’re a force, you can\'t stop us creatively. I want more for you: I’ve made it through, I want you to see what I’ve seen. It’s about everyone having the opportunity to see more, so they’ll want more, to feel like they are more.” If the wisdom of Kano’s bars positions him as an elder statesman of UK rap, the album as a whole confirms that he’s an undisputed great of the genre. Musically, it sets new standards in vision and ambition, complementing visceral electronic beats with strings and choirs as it moves through exhilarating left turns and dizzying switches of pace and intensity. “I wanted it to be an exciting listen,” he says. “Like the beat that comes in from nowhere in ‘Teardrops’—it’s like a slap in the face. This ain’t the album that you just put on in the background. I didn\'t want it to be that. You need to dedicate time out of your day to listen to this.”
A powerful homage to the victims of a broken society, Kano still demonstrates music’s ability to mourn, heal, and ask important questions
Kano holds the rhyme and reason to encapsulate our splintered society, and possesses the angst to make it hit home.
Much like fellow grime originators Dizzee Rascal and Wiley, Kano released a highly acclaimed debut album during the genre's first wave circa 2003-2005, then proceeded to spend the following decades alternating between commercially oriented and underground-minded material, with varying results.
Hoodies All Summer, the sixth studio album from grime scene veteran Kano, manages to pack a lot into just under 40 minutes. Kano's wordplay...
On Hoodies All Summer, Kano writes about a culture that few people understand due to its complexity, where people see it as a necessity to carry a knife and are all but ignored by those in government.
Three years after his MOBO winning album ‘Made In The Manor’ was released, Kano is back with his most important piece of work to date:
Hoodies All Summer, Kano's sixth studio album, wants you to be angry, because if anything’s going to change we all need to be.
The veteran MC reveals his pensive side on a brooding sixth album that skilfully fuses the sombre and the uplifting
The hooded sweatshirt is often seen as a signifier of youth criminality, a utilitarian garment repurposed as sinister cloak.
A career best for an MC who's been at the heart of grime since its inception. Music review by Joe Muggs