Crop Circle 3

Nines’ fourth album, *Crop Circle 2*, ended (on “Outro”) with a pledge to “tap out” from the streets. Just a few months later, this follow-up finds him dismissing all plans for a gracious exit. Arriving less than six months on from its predecessor, the Londoner’s second full-length of 2023 harvests a fresh batch of potent raps. A slick display from a snarly kingpin still deeply staked in a lifestyle that has both threatened and supported his rap rise at different moments. Again faced with the question of how to leave the game behind when it’s all you’ve known, Nines is flanked by ICB partner Skrapz for swinging, supersized trap joints (“Only One,” “Devils Rejects”), hovering over choices previously weighed up and laid out as far back as 2013 on acclaimed mixtape *Gone Till November*. In this sense, the harsh and roundabout motion of the streets now sticks as *the* defining circle of this colorful trilogy. Nines has been delivering effortless, larger-than-life rhymes for more than a decade, defined by his unique form of slick-talk. Unsurprisingly here, references range from *Rugrats* to *Game of Thrones* (on “Daily Duppy”), as Nines pulls in everyday pop culture that softens the gritty and dark tints to his story. There’s also room to stir over street politics (“My Turn”), but fun pairings with Bradford natives Bad Boy Chiller Crew (on garage stepper “Toxic”) and Tunde and Mugzz (on “I Do”—a bouncy flip of Snoop Dogg’s 1994 classic “Gin and Juice”) flicker at a dizzying tempo—as does the latest installment of the UK’s hardest posse cut series, “Line of Fire Pt. 7.” “They want to see me fade but I ain’t done yet/But one day I’ll sail into the sunset,” Nines declares over plucked chords for a redemptive final flourish (on *CC3’s* “Outro” with R&B riser Debbie), likening his break for freedom to Andy Dufresne’s escape from Shawshank. Welcoming fresh sounds and collaborators to the bright, expansive world within his fifth studio album, Nines weaves together another motion-picture-worthy saga.