Stormzy’s second album hit streaming services in the UK just a couple of hours after polls closed in the country’s latest general election. The vote was touted as the most important in recent British history, but, honestly, you’d be forgiven for having lost track by now. Besides, this timing wasn’t planned: The election was called just a matter of weeks ago. Typically this coincidence in timing wouldn’t matter, but in the years since his debut, Gang Signs & Prayer, went to number one, Stormzy has risen to become something of a generational spokesperson. It feels fitting, then, that the album arrived as the country decided on its future.
Since 2017, Stormzy’s music and his activism have been increasingly intertwined. He used a performance at the BRIT Awards to decry then-Prime Minister Theresa May’s response to the Grenfell tragedy. Thousands of people at Glastonbury were broadcast shouting “Fuck the government and fuck Boris [Johnson, UK prime minister]” during his performance of “Vossi Bop” this summer. Elsewhere, he’s established a scholarship fund for black students at Cambridge University, and launched a publishing imprint with Penguin that’s dedicated to showcasing underrepresented voices.
If there’s a unifying theme to this album, it’s the infiltration of black artists—and young black men in particular, who are especially demonised and marginalised in British society—into canonized spaces. It plays out in the Shakespearean reference in the album’s title, and the hanging of its artwork in London’s National Portrait Gallery. “We’re still taking up space,” Stormzy declares on punchy opener “Big Michael,” and with the repetition of “Big Michael’s back, your time’s up” there’s the sense that he’s addressing more than just opponents in petty grime beefs. On “Superheroes” he rewrites the media’s narrative around young black men, calling out the successes of his peers. He underlines the point elsewhere on the album by calling out the endless list of establishment hallmarks and name-checks he’s notched up in the past two years: The Glastonbury headline slot, Elle cover, TIME cover, GQ cover, number one chart spots, BRIT Awards. It all adds up to a powerful picture.
His phenomenal success and influence have compounded the pressure on his still-young shoulders—“How the hell did I buss so fast?” he asks on “Audacity.” For Stormzy, the remaining questions are existential: Is he comfortable with his status as a household name and figurehead? It’s something he pokes at in the opening bars of the album—“Can’t tell where I’m heading,” he brags half-heartedly—but he arguably never finds an answer. Moments of doubt and frustration creep in. “I am not the poster boy for mental health,” he spits on “One Second,” referring to an unsanctioned NME cover from 2017. “Mummy always said if there’s a cause then I should fight for it/So yeah I understand, but I don’t think that I’m all right with it,” he continues. He’s aware of his contradictions—“One week it’s ‘Blinded By Your Grace,’ next week it’s bang you in your face,” as he puts it on the album opener—and they play out in the open here. There’s gravity in these moments of vulnerability, but Stormzy doesn’t always get it right.
“Lessons” is the album’s most tender moment, but arguably its most problematic. The track appears to confirm rumors of the rapper’s infidelity to his radio presenter/model ex-girlfriend Maya Jama, and Stormzy spends the majority of the three minutes asking for forgiveness. However, lines like “Thought I’d say it here than rather fling it in a text” perhaps reveal his misunderstanding of the power dynamics at play. Of course he has every right to address his personal torment in his art, but in this case he appears to ignore the fact that the person who ended the relationship—and did so as privately as possible—might not want the break-up to play out on an album track that’ll be listened to and combed over by potentially millions of people. It also feels slightly disingenuous when followed by a song whose hook is about ejaculating on someone else’s girlfriend’s face.
The heavy politicizing of his work doesn’t mean he’s not having fun, though. At the root of Stormzy’s appeal, as well as his authenticity, is a charismatic swagger. He skips over the beat on “Pop Boy” with such ease that there’s little to do but sit back and revel in it. The Burna Boy- and Sheeran-backed “Own It” follows: A silky pop anthem for a generation reared on dembows. The album is built around one-two punch combinations like this pairing. Adjacent songs are linked with one another sonically and lyrically: “Wiley Flow” and “Bronze” trade grimey taunts over record sales and certifications; “Crown” and “Rainfall” meld praise and introspection in an extension of GSAP’s “gospel grime” tracks; “Handsome” matches the marching tempo of “Rachael’s Little Brother” and links to the song with its “bun down the rave like Rachael Anson” refrain.
These threads between tracks are a cute touch, but feel slightly overwrought as the record slides between pared-back grime, luxurious R&B, introspective trap, gospel confessional, and puff-chested rap. The versatility on show gives a sheen of adventurousness that isn’t quite backed up by the beat selections—the majority of which feel like safe choices for an artist otherwise known for his accelerated ambitions. And while HITH sees Stormzy navigate second album syndrome with apparent ease, it also leaves open the question of where he goes from here.
