The Daily Telegraph - Saturday - Review
When grime does Shakespeare
Grime star Stormzy gets positively Shakespearean on his second album, Heavy Is the Head, bullishly declaring himself “our country’s greatest poet” while fretting about the responsibility that brings. “The spirit of depression never sleeps/ I am not the poster boy for mental health/ I need peace of mind, I need to centre self,’ he raps on One Second.
The title paraphrases the monarch’s insomniac fretting in Henry IV, Part II: “Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.” The cover photograph – currently on display at the National Portrait Gallery – shows Stormzy contemplating the Union Jack stab-proof vest designed by the graffiti artist Banksy for his Glastonbury set this year, when the 26-year-old Londoner (born Michael Omari Owuo Jr) became the first black British male artist to headline Britain’s most venerable rock festival. Throughout this album, he wrestles with the privileges and burdens of his success. The result wittily, emotionally and triumphantly affirms his position at the head of the British rap pack.
Like many of our most fascinating pop stars, from John Lennon to Robbie Williams, Stormzy lies on a knife-edge between ego and insecurity, selfconfidence and self-doubt. “When Banksy put that vest on me/ Felt like God was testing me,” Stormzy professes on Audacity. It is one of several tracks (including Big Michael, Pop Boy, Wiley Flow, Bronze and number one single Vossi Bop) in which he comes out swinging, riding aggressively over booming electronic beats and plush synths with the kind of excessive braggadocio that can verge on the comical.
Yet his prideful swagger is undercut by the ruminative tone and confessional lyrics of Crown (where the darker implications of the title are explored) and Rachael’s Little Brother. The latter undermines increasingly arrogant boasts (“I’m Mr GQ, I’m gracing the cover / I’m multitalented, its like I’m Donald Glover”) with admissions of psychological problems (“I bottle up then spill it to my therapist”) and prayers for salvation: “Father help me through the pain/ Brought this on myself, now tell me who’s to blame?”
Stormzy’s faith infuses his work with a moral purpose, even though he asserts that “When I take a stand/ They say I’m ruining my brand.” Actually, his religious convictions give him an appealing duality, both lyrical and musical, with gospel choir elements softening and harmonically widening grime’s electro edges, and Stormzy often switching to a gentle, unaffected singing voice.
The stand out track is Superheroes, a lush empowerment anthem in which Stormzy generously offers to share his crown with all the “young black kings” and “young black queens” of his generation. “What a flippin’ time to be a black Brit!” Could Shakespeare have put it better?