The best albums of 2019, No 2: Dave – Psychodrama
Dave had an interesting start to 2019. His debut album’s lead single Black, a meditation on the perceptions and stigmas attached to dark skin and the struggles black Britons have in the UK, was deemed by some as “racist against white people”. By writing a song that brazenly celebrated blackness, he pushed too much at the fragile psyche of some of his countrymen. Probing at boundaries was what this year became about for Dave.
Until this year, the rapper was a singles artist – he managed 11 before his debut album was released – but Black marked a sea change. No sub-fourminute banger destined for clubs and repetitive radio play – such as Thiago Silva or Funky Friday – it was serious, reflective and grownup. It set out the stall for an anticipated album from an artist who was only 20, but had the clout to bag cameos from Dina AsherSmith, Stormzy and Raheem Sterling in the video for Black – three other black Britons whose actions have sent reactive elements of conservative Britain into hysterics.
When Psychodrama was released, it was praised for having “the unguarded catharsis of a therapy session”. That might not sound attractive but in an era where more people are discussing mental health, it felt like a timely dose of reality delivered in the parlance of the day. Featuring production from Fraser T Smith, whose credits include work with Adele and James Morrison, the album was far more minimal than Dave’s earlier work – his own piano playing runs like a melancholy thread throughout.
Few were shocked when Dave won the Mercury prize. It was a year where nearly all the nominees made personal politics part of their work, but Dave did it in an original way that avoided some of the cliches of his fellow nominees, mapping out his interior world in stark, soul-baring detail. From album opener Psycho, where Dave is positioned as a patient telling all to a therapist, we meet a rapper who is as agitated as he is angry. An absentee father, a sibling in prison (his brother Christopher is serving a life sentence for his involvement in the killing of Sofyen Belamouadden), a burgeoning, pressurised music career – it all gets mixed into an urban opera that plays out intensely, and internally.
In Streatham, Environment and
Screwface Capital, Dave paints himself as a compromised protagonist wading through myriad issues in modern London. He’s hardworking but flawed; vengeful and self-deprecating. On Purple Heart and Burna Boy collaboration Location, Dave the romantic is presented as someone who thinks he can solve most issues by getting on a plane. They’re the most commercial tracks on an album that luxuriates in hidden depths. On Lesley, Dave turns his attention to domestic violence and control, playing an ambivalent narrator who delivers a story that’s somewhere between Rapman’s hip-hop musicals and Tupac’s classic Brenda’s Got a Baby. Arguably the album’s best track, Disaster works so well because Dave corrals his internal warring factions and bounces them off the equally chargedup J Hus. The pair talk about backstabbing, score-settling and pour pestilence on unnamed enemies over icy production from Ikeoluwa Oladigbolu (AKA TSB) and Smith.
Album closer Drama is – along with 11-minute Lesley – the most high-concept moment on the record. “The concept of Psychodrama actually came from the type of therapy Chris has been having in prison,” Dave told the Observer, before explaining the idea behind Drama. “The whole idea for the album, everything’s based off him, and that song is a conversation between me and him.” It’s a desperate two-way chat with Dave explaining his motivations, his relationship to his brother (who he clearly reveres) and the betrayals he’s suffered (there’s a vague reference to losing “over 30 grand to family”). It becomes obvious that for Dave and his brother this is pain they’re still living in the midst of. Over seven minutes, he manages to recast the previous 10 tracks in an even darker light and pushes the boundaries of Psychodrama – and British rap – still further.