Gang Signs & Prayer
The debut solo album from the breakout grime MC is a detailed portrait and full-throated riot, switching between clapping back at lesser rappers and serving up smoothed-out Quiet Stormzy.
The south London grime don, Stormzy, delivers a knockout debut album that’s brash and pensive in equal measure.
Stormzy redefines what is means to be a British institution on Gang Signs & Prayer, a record flush with rowdiness and regimentation, packed to the brim with purpose.
If Skepta’s ‘Konnichiwa’ was grime’s breakthrough, ‘Gang Signs & Prayer’ is its blockbuster.
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For all the talk of new wave grime artists, Stormzy has long been standing head and shoulders -- literally and figuratively -- above his peers.
On his Mercury Prize-winning LP Konnichiwa last year, Skepta challenged listeners in asking, "Wanna hate on me? Wanna hate on Storm? / Fuck...
Stormzy, it seems, is the everyman MC. Adored by everyone from Ed Sheeran to Adele, from the disaffected youth who constituted grime’s original,
Stormzy's taken his time to assemble his debut album 'Gang Signs & Prayer' but it's a record that shows why he's one of grime's leading lights.
The south London MC arrived on the grime scene fully formed and at just the right time – but it’s his lyrical gifts that have made him a star