Complex UK's Best Albums Of 2020

“When you hear the music, I think the title explains itself,” Nines tells Apple Music of his third album *Crabs in a Bucket*. “I just felt like when I look back on recent situations I had, they all made me feel that way.” An artist who has always depicted the transition from life on the road (2015 mixtape *One Foot In*) to being a high-profile rapper and entrepreneur (2017’s *One Foot Out*), his absence from the forefront of the music scene since his acclaimed 2018 album *Crop Circle* has brought around a slew of online rumors, as well as heightened anticipation for his next release. On *Crabs in a Bucket*, Nines—born Courtney Freckleton—explains where he’s been, exploring the impact of his stabbing in the summer of 2019, during a time when he was also supporting his father through cancer. The incident left the North-West Londoner requiring surgery and a recovery period abroad—time away that allowed him to find solace, and regain a passion for music. All of which ignited his ambition to put together his most polished work yet. “I was in different countries—Spain, Paris, Dubai—when I was making this album. That’s why it took a bit of time. I would go sometimes three months without recording. But you know what they say: When you’re uninspired, the best thing is to do other things.” Over 52 minutes, and with guest spots from Nafe Smallz, NSG, and Headie One to name a few, Nines relights his fire by doubling down on witty rap references, big-time boasts, and smooth trap talk. Elsewhere, he hones his storytelling prowess—and allows himself the room to be more introspective than ever (see “Intro” and “NIC” especially). Walk with Nines as he breaks down *Crabs in a Bucket*, one track at a time. **Intro** “I didn’t intend for this to be the intro to the album, but everyone I’ve played the album to said this was the one. Normally you hear me get busy with the trap talk, the flavors, just popping that fly shit, but I went deeper and addressed a lot. It set the tone for the album; when the fans ask ‘Where has Nines been?’ you can listen to this and connect the dots. When I made this, I was bored on a plane. I’ve been flying a lot in the last year and I’ve been going through beats on YouTube. I heard this beat on there by an American producer, and once I played it, I had to track him down. At the end that’s me chatting to \[UK producer\] Quincy. I poured out my pain and just let it flow.” **Energy (feat. Skrapz)** “This was produced by Beatfreakz. I made it when I was driving around in my car—it just sounds like one of those tracks you can cruise to. I phoned up Skrapz and told him that I’ve got some fire that I need him on; that’s family so it was really that simple.” **Clout** “I consider ‘Airplane Mode’ to be the lead single, but it came out after ‘Clout.’ This wasn’t even meant to be a single. When I was playing tracks to the young guns, they said this was the one. My guy 1st Born produced this. You already know what I’m about when I make a song, you hear the wordplay—I can’t call really call it bragging, because I live it. The inspiration for the video was just some of the albums that have influenced me when I was growing up. When I get an idea, my guy \[director\] Charlie Di Placido helps me bring it to life. We directed the video together and I feel like we did it justice.” **Realist (feat. Nafe Smallz and Fundz)** “Come on, man, this one was inevitable! Nafe has been family for a minute, so it was only right that we linked up properly on a track. On *One Foot In*, he was only on a bonus track, but this time we just had to make it happen for real. On this song I kinda stepped into his world with the instrumental. We were at a coffee shop in Amsterdam and the guy who owns the shop has a studio in there, so Quincy hit me up and was like, ‘Yo, I’ve got something that was made for you,’ and we just took it from there. Quincy is family as well, I’ve been fucking with him for a while now. This was one of the most organic sessions I had for the album.” **Monster** “1st Born produced this also. He’s got a few joints on here. He laced me with this eerie-sounding beat so it was easy to get into that mindset when I was recording. ‘I swear these streets turned me to a monster, I swear these streets turned me to a—’ This track explains itself, you know what I come from already. I was in Dubai when I made this.” **Airplane Mode (feat. NSG)** “Shout out KZ and Rudimental. When I was making the album, I was thinking about the clubs for real, and I wanted a club song. Before COVID stopped everything, I would hit the clubs and DJs would play \[Nines’ 2017 track\] ‘Trapper of the Year.’ I know they wouldn’t play that if I wasn’t here. It’s homage, but it’s not a club song, you get me? So I feel like I needed an ‘Airplane Mode’ on the album. I fuck with NSG, I reached out to them, invited them to the studio, and the rest was history. We all played PlayStation, blew trees, it was a good time! We actually made three songs in that session, but ‘Airplane Mode’ was the one for me because I had my eye on the commercial side.” **NIC (feat. Tiggs Da Author)** “Tiggs has been on all of my studio albums, he’s a natural with it. Whenever I say I’m working on an album, he’ll always come around like, ‘I’ve got something for your album, bro.’ \[Producer\] Show N Prove is the same too. He’s actually produced all the songs that me and Tiggs have done together. When I heard the beat, I already knew I wanted to go into story mode. It has that vintage feel to it. Some of my inspiration comes from how 50 Cent, Hov, and those guys used to tell stories. I feel like you can hear it here, just the come-up story from my school days. That influence is why there\'s three verses. I felt like it was too long, but when I play it to people, they would beg me not to cut it to two.” **Don’t Change (feat. Northsidebenji)** “This is definitely one for the ladies, so I had to get \[Canadian rapper\] Benji on here. Carlos produced this one–he’s my go-to engineer, but he’s been getting in his bag lately with production. He’ll chop up samples for me that I’ll take to him. Here it was the ‘Don’t Change’ sample that I wanted someone to sing over. I hit up Benji and he laid his melodies and done his thing on it. I really enjoy helping to develop artists. Looking after other artists as the head of an imprint when you’re an artist as well is tricky; your natural instinct is to protect your own interests. With Benji, I co-manage him and I wanted to help him out.” **Lights (feat. Louis Rei)** “Again, that is me and Carlos in collab mode. I would say we both produced it, but it’s more him because he chopped the sample. Shout out to the boy Louis, man, people always try to take him out of the rapper conversation because he’s the vibes guy. But even when Akelle went away, he stepped up and held it down for WSTRN. People act like LB is not the guy, but it was good to get a joint with him where we’re both rapping nice.” **Money Ain’t a Thing (feat. Roy Woods)** “I think this one was worked on by three different producers: Quincy, Steel Banglez, and my guy Sean. Shout out to my OVO family Roy Woods, he’s good peoples. He wanted to be on the hook rather than drop a verse, and he came through with that. Since before I signed the deal, I could say money weren’t a thing. Could’ve been in *Top Boy* but I turned it down. Come on: *Crop Circle*, baby! It would have been a good look but off-brand given the fact I’m doing my own thing with *Crop Circle*.” **Ringaling (feat. Headie One and Odeal)** “Headie has been one of my favorites for a while now. Headie and K-Trap go in on drill. And M1llionz is trying to run away with it right now, too. He’s been on a good run, but those three are killing it. The Elements and Steel Banglez co-produced ‘Ringaling’—it doesn’t sound like any song I’ve done before. Again, this track was done with an eye on the club. You can’t be playing ‘Trapper of the Year’ in the clubs, we all know what that is. You thought that ‘Don’t Change’ was the girl song, but this is it for me. I talk about the love I have for bae, but I let her know that I gotta leave her when the money calls!” **Flavours** “You know I’ve been the tree guy from early, from the beginning, so I had to make a weed song. My favorite strains right now are Skittles, or Biscotti—that’s that good Cali right there. Billy Kimber as well—all the others don’t compare. We only keep exotic flavors around here, bro!” **Flex (feat. Northsidebenji and REID B2WN)** “This was produced by my guy, the young Nav Michael, who produced Drake’s ‘Back to Back.’ He’s the same as Show N Prove with me—when I’m trying to make an album he’ll always come through with something for me. Benji wrapped up his part effortlessly and I tried to match his energy with a smooth flow and flex a little.” **Stalker Interlude (feat. Cherrie)** “True stories: I really had stalkers following me at one point—ringing my phone, showing up at random shows. One time we were in Croatia for a festival and this girl showed up there and hit me up. Cherrie is a Swedish singer that I met through a mutual friend. She came through to the studio and I played her a few beats and she took to this one the most. When I was writing this one, I was influenced by my Fire in the Booth and also JAY-Z’s ‘Girls, Girls, Girls.’” **Movie Knights** “I had to hop on a hometown beat, so I hollered at my guy MK, a young producer from the ends. The reason for this is because when I go to my studio I see all the plaques I have, but the studio in ends doesn’t have a single plaque in there. So hopefully we get a plaque for this one. You know I’m about my films—throughout the song you hear me reference some of my favorites. Funnily enough, I was with Leon \[Palmer, the creative behind the Movie Knights brand\] in the studio when I made that and had some fun with it. Leon is a cool guy. I’ll never forget when he came to the ends on his ones just to meet me. I thought he was mad! But we’re alike—we see something we want and go for it.” **All Stars 2 (feat. Clavish, Frosty, Q2T and Chappo CSB)** “I had to show the young Gs some love on the album, let them get their shine on. Clavish picked the beat, and I don’t usually rap on beats at this tempo, but that’s what the youngers were doing. We done our thing, and I’m not dissing the song… I just wish Clavish picked a different beat.” **Outro** “Just like the intro, this one came from the heart. I rapped from the heart and poured my pain over the beat. By the time you get to the end of the album, what I want people—especially the youngers—to take from this is that you can be in the hood, and born into it, but do see other things in life. I’m not saying leave the hood, but there’s levels to life. I was turning down festivals and not doing shows so I can stand around in the hood—that doesn’t make any sense. Start thinking about the long game, you have to.”

“I was fresh from a war but it was internal/Every day I encounter another hurdle,” J Hus spits as he closes *Big Conspiracy* on the piano-led “Deeper Than Rap”. That war, and the highs and lows of Momodou Jallow’s life, make for a mesmerising second album. Lyrics address his incarceration, street life, God, violence, his African roots and colonialism. From others those themes would feel heavy, but delivered in J Hus’ effortless voice, with a flow that switches frequently, they stun. The references are playful, too—Mick Jagger and Woody Woodpecker are mentioned on “Fortune Teller” and Destiny’s Child get a recurrent role in the standout “Fight for Your Right”. Hus is backed by inventive instrumentation encompassing delicate strings, Afrobeats, reggae and hip-hop and nods to garage and Dr. Dre’s work with 50 Cent, while Koffee and Burna Boy contribute to the celebratory feel on “Repeat” and “Play Play”. This is a record as diverse, smart and vibrant as anything coming from the UK right now.

In April 2020, just freed from his fourth prison stint, Headie One flew back to a locked-down London in a helicopter. Sitting in the passenger seat and reflecting on his sentence, the capital’s biggest drill star set out his intentions for the rest of the year. “The plan was to shock the world,” he tells Apple Music. “I had my mind right, my energy right and I knew that I was coming out to make some serious moves.” Revealing a strong aversion to taking breaks, the prolific Tottenham rapper quickly set about on executing a much-delayed debut LP that he’d already titled whilst incarcerated. *EDNA* bears the name of his late mother but also carries promise of a new chapter for Headie One—facing up personal demons and sitting with his life’s lessons. “She was a really positive person,” he says of Edna Duah. “I think that’s gotta be my strongest memory of her.” And in this image, “Teach Me” and “Psalm35” open the album in stunning fashion. The running theme of facing up to uncomfortable truths is explored further on “The Light” and “Breathing”. Concurrent to his path of self-evolution, Headie carries a drill crown that comes with increasing weight and contention. Few artists have negotiated a bumpier ride to UK rap’s top table, but fewer artists still arrive at this moment co-signed by such illustrious contemporaries. With an all-star list of features that include Future, Skepta, Aitch and Drake, the album completes a turnaround almost unthinkable this time last year. “Every mistake I made I feel like I’ve learned from it and it’s got me to this point here,” he says. “Tough times don’t last but tough people do.” Here, Headie talks us through some highlights of his debut album. **Psalm 35** “I would read this verse in the Bible quite a lot; in troubled times it would always bring me peace. It’s really simple but it always makes a lot of sense to me. Most people wouldn’t expect my album to start off like this but I don’t really think about expectations from fans or other people when my music gets made, trust me. Do that in life and you’ll be going around in circles.” **Bumpy Ride (feat. M Huncho)** “There’s a lot of energy to this one and a lot of melody. That’s almost expected though, with me and Huncho here together. We were in the studio when we cooked this one up and it all happened quite quickly. I feel like the title speaks for itself too, we’re just going in about the realities of what’s going on right now. It’s one of my favorites. The thing about the drill scene and the way our words and terms change around over time is that you just can’t force these things. That’s what makes it so good. The inspiration is all in the air—it’s just an energy—you pick up what you can and go with it.” **Mainstream** “I say, ‘Labour or Conservatives I ain’t got a preference/The only thing that they consider is two-thirds of a sentence’, because truthfully politics is something I don’t pay any mind. It’s all a joke in the UK. I’ve always kept my views to myself generally, but even in looking at the way they’ve tried to block and blackball drill music to stop us when we were on the rise? It’s not for me. I’m a guy that works with energy and I can’t get with that. I’d rather not involve my thought process in those games. I’d rather move forward and try and be positive.” **Breathing** “That’s one of my little broskis I’ve recorded at the beginning here. He’s in custody right now but he called to tell me that he’d been writing loads inside. So I threw a bit of that on here. He’s one of the \[three\] young Gs I mention in the first verse here. We all grew up in the same estate and I’m a bit older than them but I would see them constantly. Back then, there wouldn’t always be a lot of positive things going on to tell you the truth but I’d be trying to speak to them. I’d be trying to get them to see things differently, you know, pick alternatives. But…yeah it hasn’t worked out for them. They all received life sentences. And to be honest, when I was their age there wasn’t really anyone around to show me the reality of these things either. No-one told us how certain things could lead to other serious consequences.” **Only You Freestyle \[Headie One & Drake\]** “There was so much stuff going on in the background around this time I remember it so clearly. All the George Floyd protests, it was crazy. I called my manager on FaceTime after Drake hit me up. The first thing he said to me, ‘Well, what type of song is he looking to do?’ So we waited, and when they sent over the beat we were laughing, like, ‘This is *too* easy!’ It was a bit of genius from him to send that too, because it’s perfect production for me and I hadn’t really got on something like that in a while. It was love from Drake and I’m happy that it came out so natural and unforced. I get that some people out there thought Drake was offbeat, but nah. Straight away I understood what he was doing. It was a very intentional thing. I completely understand those flows. When I’m in the studio, my team tell me the same thing at times: ‘Can you re-do this here and make it tighter?’ or ‘The flow’s a bit off here.’ But this is how it sounds to me, in my ears, when I’ve got a flow. If you wanna come off beat for four bars and then land on beat for the fifth, then that’s what you wanna do! As artists we should be allowed to do what we want.” **Try Me (feat. Skepta)** “The beat’s really energetic. I really like this one, it’s a bit different to \[2019 single\] ‘Back to Basics’, our first track together. The best way to describe this is ‘straight to the point’. It’s hard-hitting and Skepta brought his A-game. To me, it’s just two rappers rapping. Skepta would always be a person to help out or give me advice, people might not know that. From when me met, it was a matter of time before we got in and recorded something. We linked up earlier in the year at Fashion Week, we were just rollin’, having a good time. We didn’t have to rush to get to it because the energy has always been great with him.” **Everything Nice (feat. Haile)** “To go back to the start of this song, it could have been really, really different. I think I only had my melody on it. I kept on working on it and the sample on the track was so crazy, and the production—it was almost like a hit a bit of a brick wall with the song. I tried so many different things but truthfully I just wasn’t feeling it. So we sent it to Haille, and he literally sent the song back. Complete. Now it’s a movie!”

When the largely anonymous UK collective Sault released *Untitled (Black Is)* in June 2020, it arrived on the heels of global unrest spawned, this time, by the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police. That album spoke to the profound grief and rage that so many Black people (and their allies) felt, offering a lifeline and a balm at the perfect moment. *Untitled (Rise)* comes three months later, celebratory in its spirit and poetic in its motion—the fresh air inhaled after a summer of drowning. Soulful disco and buoyant funk inform the album from the outset. “Strong,” complete with regal marching band flourishes, beckons to listeners to get up and move: “We\'re moving forward tonight,” a vocalist commands in the early seconds of the opener. “We won\'t back down tonight.” What follows is a monument to resilience and Black people\'s ability to conjure joy under any circumstances, and the songs keep the freedom of the dance floor (or the square) in their center. “I Just Want to Dance” is an intoxicating collage of percussion, while the loose groove of “Fearless” and the kineticism of “Street Fighter” keep up the energy. Elsewhere, “Son Shine,” with its affecting gospel choral arrangements, connects spiritual history with the present, a reminder that so much of this magic has long been intertwined with the sacred: “Let the son shine through my pain, so we will rise.” Towards the back, the tempo slows into the meditative, strings replace the much of the percussion, and the spaces between lyrics become more prominent leading into “The Black & Gold,” a solemn instrumental that evokes peace or rest. The final track offers one last thematic tie: the pain but also the divinity, a guilty world and the preservation of innocence. At its core, *Untitled (Rise)* is about duality and holding multiple truths in a single heart; it asks and extends levity while ensuring, also, that we do not forget.

“Drill is my genre and I feel like I’m owning that now,” Loski tells Apple Music. “When I was younger, Chicago’s drill music had a big influence on us. I remember every day going home from school to look on YouTube at all the Chicago music and what was going on. Then people from Brixton started doing it, but we were also speeding up the tempo of the beats almost, we didn’t know we would start anything, it’s just what we were into.” Pioneering the UK’s variant on the sound from Chicago’s South Side, Loski introduced himself in the summer of 2016. He unveiled his animated flow on breakout single ‘Hazards’—instincts perhaps inherited from his father, Ty Nizzy: a founding member of mid-2000s Brixton rap crew PDC. Death, street beefs and unseemly departures would punctuate the next couple of years for Loski’s own south London collective, Harlem Spartans, while Loski himself served two prison sentences either side of a pair of reputation-enhancing mixtapes. “Obviously, music’s my life right now,” he says, nodding to his debut album’s title. “This is how I’m living. I’ve been on trial my whole life. Not even just with my cases, but trials through anything. Football trials, trials through school. In a way, it’s like we’re all on trial. And then the trauma that’s been over the last couple of years—and since my early teens, really.” Here, Loski picks out the key tracks from a record that underlines his evolution as a man and an artist, and points to a bright future for himself and UK drill. **Anglo Saxon (feat. Blanco)** “Blanco was rapping under the Harlem \[Spartans\] name even before I was. Blanco, and my cousin Bis, who passed away, those two were the first to start rapping. They used to go to a youth club called Alford House in Kennington. They went there for maybe two days and they came up with like 10 songs. So then I started rapping. Right as we started, I went to jail and they carried on the Harlem thing. When I came out they were in jail, so it was like we kept missing each other. I remember sitting in jail—listening to the radio and hearing ‘Kennington Where It Started’, ‘Call Me A Spartan’, all of those tunes. I was in jail for all of that and when I was out, I heard that Blanco was inside. So ‘Anglo Saxon’ is really something the fans needed. Blanco hasn’t rapped on a drill beat in a long time as well. He’s from Angola so the beats h’s rapping on now are mad—these Brazilian-sounding types of instrumentals. He’s trying to bring his own sound through and push something new, but we all started on drill. This is for all the Harlem fans.” **Basil Brush (feat. OFB, Bandokay & Double Lz)** “I’ve worked on a lot of tunes with OFB in the studio and they put in work, they’re both really good. It just works. Differently to that, \[OFB member\] Bando’s dad \[Mark Duggan\] and mine were very close, so the love and respect has always been there, trust me. When I was in jail and I found out he was rapping, it was so sick to me. It’s always nice to keep that connection alive and keep working together. More than anything, it’s a family thing with them.” **Captain Hook** “This is probably my favorite drill song on here. I said: ‘Lost my heart when I lost my darg’, and that’s referencing when we lost \[Harlem Spartans member\] SA. That was my first big loss, and I thought nothing could be worse, right? Then Bis died and it was just mad. I feel like after taking those two big, big losses, anything else that happens in life I don’t even think could affect me more.” **Avengers (feat. Fredo & Popcaan)** “When I was sent this beat I wasn’t feeling it at the time. I had just come out and I was only trying to get on drill—I didn’t wanna hear any other sounds. But I was in the studio, I had a session with \[UK producers\] Mojam and management came back in and heard it like, ‘Oh, that’s a hit. Make that hit!’ So I pulled the tune back up and we finished it. It was all done in about half an hour. I laid the verse and the chorus and we were thinking of who to put on it. Working through bare names, and then the link with Popcaan came up, so we made that happen. He put his verse on it, shelled it, and obviously Fred has jumped on and done his thing. Everything worked out.” **Flavour (with Stormzy)** “This one’s mad. Stormzy had the tune first. He was in LA with the producer and he says when he made this he was thinking of my tune \[2018 single\] ‘Cool Kid’, like, ‘Right, this needs Loski on it’, that kinda thing. Listen, it’s a Stormzy tune: even if I didn’t like it I was probably going to rock with it! But he hit me up, I heard it and it was dope so we made it happen. We’ve had this tune for over a year now, DJ Tiiny played it on the radio once and since then the fans have been waiting and waiting to hear this.” **Black** “I’ve always remembered my mum telling me, ‘Oh, I really want you to remix (2007 single) “Black Boys” by Bashy’. It came out in 2007 when I was a little boy, I would be watching Channel U and the song would come on, and I’d run and say, ‘Mum! The song’s on!’ A few of my aunts know Bashy well and they speak highly of him so I’ve got a lot of respect for the man. \[UK producer\] Naughty Boy made the beat for the song and I have that connection with him so it was sick to be able to get the parts for the song and remake it. My mum hasn’t heard this yet but I know she’ll be gassed when she does, I just tried to flip it in my way.” **Blinded (feat. Mike Skinner)** “I’ll be honest, I didn’t know this song sampled a track by The Streets \[‘Blinded By the Lights’\]. I knew the song from \[2006 British film\] *Kidulthood*! Even now, the mandem say to me, ‘Yo, that *Kidulthood* song is cold!’ but I can correct them now like, ‘It’s The Streets, that’s Mike Skinner!’ Crazy! I just liked it from when I was a little boy and I wanted to remake something that reminded me of happier days.” **Life So Deep (feat. Emeli Sandé)** “I wrote this song a couple of months ago \[summer 2020\]. It’s kind of inspired by a \[Brixton rapper\] DVS song from 2006 called ‘Life’s So Deep’. It’s one of my favorites of his, so I want to remake it in my way. I still listen to the music from that whole PDC era, with the history of my pops and everything. In the past, I’ve made tunes that reflect stories of people and the things that I’ve seen growing up but I’ve not written a *story* with characters and a narrative. So I wanted to do that for the first time. Then to finish it off I wanted to get someone with that *real* soul and I thought Emeli Sandé would be dope, because no-one’s doing that! Nobody in my genre can say they go to Emeli Sandé for features. I’m just happy she heard it and thought it was dope too.”

“Everything was stripped away from me,” Unknown T tells Apple Music. “I’ve been waiting to set the record straight for a while now about everything and I’ve had to wait. I’ve had to hear slander and lies on my name and my character.” To accurately measure the loss described by the London MC (real name Daniel Lena), you’d have to first trip back to 2018, where he landed one of the surprise hits of the year with ‘Homerton B’ and helped usher in drill’s status as the sound of the UK streets. Pairing wildly imaginative bars with a gruff, deep-voiced delivery, the east Londoner unearthed a style that suggested he held all the keys to a glittering future. However, eight months after his arrival, he was arrested and charged with murder and violent disorder. Consistently maintaining his innocence while remanded in custody, Lena was cleared of all charges in February 2020. *Rise Above Hate* is a deep-coloured and courageous exploration of his journey piecing together the threads of what happened to him. “The music is the best way I know how to get things off my chest whenever I’m going through it,” he says. “If it wasn’t for that I’m not sure where I’d be or how I would have coped. I know who I am so that was the message to myself the whole time. To just keep my head above all the bullshit and eventually rise above and beyond it all.” Here, Unknown T guides you through his debut release, track by track. **Steppy**
“I wanted to start the tape off with ‘Steppy’ because it takes me right back to the start of this. I didn’t know for sure it would be used as the intro but I see it as the start of me dealing with this situation through music, so it made sense. It was in the cell on the night I was arrested. That night, no lie, that’s when I started writing ‘Steppy’. All of the anger, the hurt and the confusion that was inside of me at the time, I was putting it all into the bars. When I was released on bail conditions, I called my manager and said, ‘Yo, I need to get all of this energy out of me now!’ I got to the studio and laid this.” **Deh Deh**
“This song’s a reflection of my area. Homerton is one of those areas where, even though it’s small, there’s also that sense of community. Also, in another sense, it’s still different and fragmented wherever you go. I drew up the concept of the video, so if you pay attention, you can see I tried to portray some of that there. The easiest way to explain ‘Deh Deh’? It’s a yard ting. It’s like a point of direction.” **Addicts (feat. M Huncho)**
“I recorded this in Paris with M Huncho and we recorded non-stop out there. All day, all night. Just baking off and working and I really got to know the real Huncho, away from the music. It was easy from then. I enjoy making music, now it just comes naturally to us. I wanted to do something a little different because I feel like the project couldn’t have just been drill, drill, drill the whole way, and this song is part of what I really love to do with my raps. I love to add that imagery and it was all tied into the concepts here.” **Tug Boy** 
“I wrote this just before I went to prison and I remember how the flow came to me. It’s always been within me, this style, even when I went away, and I was working on it and adapting it. I had the session with the producer, 169. I was going through his beats and I caught a vibe to this one and immediately started building the song. The session’s memorable to me because Dave ended up coming by and we all got to sit down and have some grown conversation that day.” **Prison**
“A day before I had to go to court, I went to the studio and made this. I said to myself: ‘Look, you might have to go away for a bit so let’s get in and get these emotions out.’ It was almost like they wanted to hold me back because they could see my potential and they could see how close I was and that’s the picture I tried to paint. I love to put little details in my lyrics and really get to that deep imagery. When I listen to this, obviously, it brings back memories of my time there and it’s not a nice place, prison. It’s a cold place and that’s why it hurts to see what happens when you’re still trapped in the system and you can still be recalled for anything. It hurts when I see what’s happening to Digga D and so many others. I’ll use my voice and my story to really shed light on all of that.” **Fresh Home**
“I was aware of the stories about me reaching the papers the whole time I was inside and my legal team would update me on the internet and press talk. I just kept my faith up and waited for my day I was free. This tune is the celebration of that. I’ve had situations in my life prior that have made me realise the presence of God but my trial was like the confirmation. There is a God out there, because miracles don’t happen twice. Every single person, even if you don’t know their life, I can tell you they’ve experienced God in some way that they can’t properly explain or quantify.” **Main Squeeze (feat. Young T & Bugsey)** 
“I really rate Young T & Bugsey for how they worked with me on this track. We were going back and forth on it and they were just real with me. I was trying to do the vocal thing at first but they made me understand it’s not about trying a Young T & Bugsey ting on an Unknown T track. So I changed up my verse. It was simple advice but it worked for the track. Those guys are very underrated, and I feel like if they were from south London, they’d get twice as much recognition as they do. So I’m happy to see their success and really get their shine on Billboard this year.” **Jail Call**
“Maybe once or twice a day when you’re inside, you’ve got a 10-minute call—depending on the prison—and, obviously, it has to be a collect call. So this is a recording of a convo with my girl. She really held me down the whole time and I’m just preparing her here for the worst-case scenario.” **SS Interlude** 
“This carries it on from the skit and it’s like a goodbye to my girl. When I was writing this in prison, obviously, at that time coming home wasn’t 100 per cent. It’s tough when you know you’re in a strong, stable relationship but it’s the system that’s gonna end up breaking you apart. We already know what happens to innocent people in this system. So this was to say if worst comes to worst: go and live your life. Be happy even if I’m not around. Subliminally, I’d say it was also a message for my own mental health too. I didn’t even really want fans or anyone writing to me because I knew how hard it would get for me.” **LV (feat. Young Adz)**
“When we made this Adz was already at the studio with the producer, Remedee, and he didn’t know I was about to pull up, so Rem really helped to make that connection. He already had the tune set too, so big him up for helping to pattern that and play the middle man. I definitely wanted to have something on here about the fly fashion and style and it’s obviously something I’m into. I’ve shot a few campaigns with brands like Trapstar and Places + Faces. It’s definitely something I would want to get into more but I’m fully on music right now.” **Mortal Kombat**
“This is a tune that people have been wanting for a while. From back in the day, before I was established and I was just grinding. When I made this, that night I was flexing with Not3s and Nana Rogues in the studio. They told me to just anticipate the buzz, put a bit out and give it to the fans. I dropped the snippet and everything went mad. From then I knew this is something the fans want so I just needed to find the right time to give it to them. Now it’s time. What I’ve learnt so far in this game, is that the right time to drop music really truly is when the Olympic torch is with you. You get me? How it goes around and around but there’s only one. Naturally, in the scene, the heat shifts. So when the eyes are on you, you’ve got to keep releasing and coming hard and that’s how you’ve got to keep it. When I was fresh home that’s what I was on. I just kept on dropping. ‘Squeeze & Buss’, ‘Dumpa’, a remix here, a tune here, GRM Daily Duppy... you know? I’m back and I’m in everyone’s faces. That’s the way you got to keep it with your artistry. If you slip, there’s always a few who want to take your spot.” **Leave dat Trap (feat. AJ Tracey)**
“When this tune dropped last year, it was building up nicely after my first single and the numbers were looking similar until I was arrested. People forget that. As an artist, that was painful to have that taken away from me. But big up AJ Tracey, man! AJ was showing me love from early. He was rating my music and supporting me and it meant a lot because he’s established. From the jump, he showed organic love and continued to when I went jail.” **Squeeze & Buss**
“I made this when I came out. If you look at the tracklist from ‘Fresh Home’ onwards, it’s my life from the time I was released. It’s expressed through the music and the styles that I’m using. I’m keeping it as trill as it is. I gave the audience what they want. The energy and the pain behind this song actually reflects that. The way I’ve been stigmatised, this is me saying, ‘Fuck it’, now. This is how they labelled me, so you know what? *This* is what I’ll give to you. It was trending on Twitter two nights in a row when it played on No Signal Radio. I’ve trended more times than I have fingers now! Big up the fans.” **One Time**
“DJ Swish produced this one. He’s from America but we linked up out in France at an artist camp. It was a camp for artists from different countries to connect and write together. I had a session with Swish and also M Huncho and Headie One. Overall the camp was really useful for me and it helped my writing. That was the first time being around guys like Headie, and Huncho. I’m in the younger age group but I saw it as an opportunity for me to work hard and see how the older guys do it. When I’m in those situations, the best way for me is just being myself. I don’t have an ego when I’m in the studio. When man’s in the studio, I’m in my own bubble, and if it’s lit, then it’s lit.” **AVEN9ERS (feat. KO & V9)**
“Recently I’ve been locking in a lot more with the crew and we’ve been recording. We know it’s what the fans really want and it’s what they’ve been waiting on but we don’t wanna give out too much honestly. They’re waiting on that tape from us as a trio, but we’re not stressing—we’re taking our time. Between us the chemistry has always been great, and it’s organic. If I think up an idea, we’ll just go with that, but then the next day, it could come from V, or it could be K. It\'s like a relay baton.” **Ambition**
“I made this before I went to jail and I wanted this to be the final track to send a message out. Over the years, as my life has changed, so have my ambitions so I wanted to tell the younger generation around me to stay focused on their dreams and ambitions in life. It’s a little something different from me but I think it’s good to end on a positive and motivational note. I didn’t grow up wanting to be rapper, it was just what I was doing at that time. But when ‘Homerton B’ blew up it changed my life and it’s opened my eyes to bigger things and new experiences. Now I’m reaching for the skies because there’s no limits to this. I’ve been to the edge and back.”

Get through what your going through my G's,Make It Out Alive

“This isn’t something I’m completely new to,” M24 tells Apple Music. “But it’s because of my background and where I\'m from that people don\'t really expect me to come with different sauce. They just expect drill, and this is where I\'ll surprise people, because I can jump on anything. Even on drill I\'m gonna add some of my drip to it.” As Brixton continues to play an instrumental role as a hotbed of rap talent in London, it came as no surprise to see M24 become the latest name to explode from the area’s infamous Angell Town estate with 2019’s “We Don’t Dance.” Setting off a meteoric rise for the MC, the single’s blend of frosty rhymes and deep guttural ad-libs proved an inspired combination. “We didn\'t dance in parties. It would just be us in a corner,” he says. “There weren\'t really any dancers out of us, which was funny to me, so I went with it and the track just took off.” The MC understood, however, that his debut mixtape would only connect if the full scope of his influences were properly reflected. “There\'s recordings of me when I was eight years old, making music in my dad\'s friend\'s studio,” he says. “That\'s what I\'m saying, I\'ve been waiting for this. During lockdown I was in apartments recording literally every day. What else was there to do? I was working so hard on the tape because I wanted it to be hard but at the same time really true to me. I think this is it.” Here he walks us through his first release, track by track. **Intro** “This is an introduction to my story since everything\'s taken off for me. I wanted to shout out my son too because he\'s the most important thing to me. I\'ve been thinking of ways to put him into my music for a while, so I just thought, ‘Yeah, let me put him on from the start.’\" **Hood** “This is about the hood and all the type of stuff that happens here. I start with the line \'There\'s way more to life than the hood.\' You know what I mean? Because I want people to know that. Anyone who\'s from the hood or grown up in one will instantly relate to this.” **A Town Matters (feat. Stickz, M Dargg, Tookie & Sneakbo)** “Everybody on this track is someone that I\'ve known from my area, A-Town, and they\'re people that I love making music with right now. Bringing people that I\'ve known before this music journey the whole way with me only makes sense. When you\'re from A-Town, that\'s just what you do.” **Passion** “Nyge and Lekaa Beats produced this, and it’s one that really, really hits me. It’s a story about what I\'ve been through and the rest of my guys, because when we do things—we do it with passion! That stands for anything, whatever it is. That\'s the message at the end of the day.” **Morning** “I wanted to show that it’s not just drill you can expect from me. I can switch it up. I don\'t want to be looked at as only a drill artist. So I\'ve added different flavors on here for you to see that, and hopefully this will open up different doors for me. The title comes from when I made this one, I think it was probably 5:00 am. We were recording in an apartment but everyone else in the house was asleep. It was only Lekaa still up, and he played the beat for me and I was just messing in my head, putting together lines. I came up with \'As Well\' that morning too—a few hours earlier.” **Sweet 1** “I made the first verse and the chorus, and then I was trying to put Lil Mosey on the end of this track. We sent it over to him and it seemed like he was about to do a verse but in the end it fell through so I had to think up a second verse, just to match the levels of the first. I was working on that for a couple days and then it just came to me. This is one for shows that I can just air it and see all the sweet ones dancing to it. I can see them posting to this one all over Snapchat.” **Deli (feat. Tookie)** “Tookie is my little bro from my area. I’ve grown up with him and he’s very talented, he’s on the come-up as well. We made this just off of the vibes at the time during the lockdown. It was just a vibe thing, and that’s how the majority of my songs come to me. I don’t like to think about them too much before I lay them.” **As Well** “I came up with this that day in the studio when I recorded ‘Morning.’ I was just in that zone. Whenever I hear a beat that my spirit just connects with, that\'s when everything comes to my mind for the lyrics. I’m always ready to write when I get that inspiration. I don\'t think I\'ve ever experienced writer’s block.” **Come Again (feat. Stickz)** “The majority of these songs I recorded around the same time but I didn\'t know they were going on a project. There weren\'t plans for this, but I was going to the studio every day. When I heard the beat for this, I started writing a quick verse; I didn\'t even finish it when I was already thinking about who to get on it. Stickz came in and laid his verse and we were rolling, it just went together from there.” **Real Life** “This song hits me the most because it\'s just truly about real life to me. This one here\'s my favorite track on the project and I think I wrote it in about 10 minutes. The moment I heard the beat, I loved it and I knew this is what I needed on here to really take people somewhere when they listen to it.” **Peter Pan** “This is another one of my favorites. It was the first single because I knew about its potential to cross over. Having big tracks and getting them on the radio—that\'s the aim and that\'s why us MCs have to be extra creative with it. That\'s still where the money\'s at.” **Drip N Drill** “Right at the end of the process, after I finished all the tracks, it hit me that I still need a song called ‘Drip N Drill.’ I knew I needed a song that illustrates the name of the tape so people can understand this style. I was waiting for the right beat to come in, and after waiting and hoping, Chris Rich came round and the beat just fit me like a glove. I told him, ‘Yeah, this is it!’”