Two years ago, Michael Omari stood on the stage at the 2015 Brit Awards, shoulder-to-shoulder with a who’s who of UK rappers. Clad in all black, the MC known as Stormzy rocked along with Skepta, JME, Novelist, Jammer, Krept & Konan and dozens of others, flanking Kanye West as he performed his Paul McCartney collaboration “All Day” amid a sea of white faces in tuxedos and cocktail dresses.
It was an important moment for British hip-hop and grime in particular. For years marginalized as too violent or “gang related” and mostly shut out from Britain’s biggest pop music awards show, the heroes of the London underground had snuck in through a back door propped open by an American iconoclast. To say it had a profound effect on Stormzy—and the entire underground scene—would be an understatement.
It also marks the jumping-off point for Stormzy’s bum rush on the pop charts. The overwhelming success of “Shut Up”—the original video has now over 48 million views and the single bundled with “Wicked Skengman 4” cracked the charts—indicates a new paradigm in UK underground hip-hop. On radio shows and YouTube channels, in low-budget videos surrounded by the neighborhood squad, young MCs battle each other with pre-written “freestyles” spit over well-known beats. And it’s obvious why Stormzy has emerged from the scrum with a crown on his head: His booming voice and charisma are infectious and his 100-watt, silver-toothed smile lights up the screen.
Stormzy brings this battle rap mentality to Gang Signs & Prayer from the get-go. Opening track “First Things First” was intended “to be a punch in the face,” and the hyped-up grime rippers like “Cold” and “Big for Your Boots” are full of dire warnings to lesser rappers that might consider challenging his supremacy. But while he’s made a name for himself battling, it’s clear that he’s set his sights on something bigger: Stormzy fancies himself a crooner. He spends much of Gang Signs & Prayer going back and forth between clapping back at lesser rappers and serving up the “Stiff Chocolate” of smoothed-out Quiet Stormzy.
He goes full-on gospel on “Blinded by Your Grace, Pt. 1,” forgoing a protective autotune armor for a gentle—and pitchy—prayer. He gives it another go on “Velvet,” which also features NAO, singing declarations of love to his “princess.” It’s all painfully earnest, yet despite the cringes his croon inflicts, these moments feel essential to the ethos of Gang Signs & Prayer.
Both hard and soft, belligerent yet spiritual, Gang Signs & Prayer reveals a vulnerability belied by his 6-foot 5-inch frame and menacing glare. Even as he barks boasts on “First Things First,” he admits he’s battled depression, and he follows up the horn blasts of “Mr Skeng”—a scathing screed against doubters and dickheads—with “Cigarettes & Cush,” a tender recollection of a doomed relationship featuring Kehlani and Lily Allen. He presents these parts of himself unapologetically, juxtaposing the gang signs of his youth with the prayers from his Ghanian single mother, which quite literally grace “100 Bags” in a touching ode to her love and influence.
This dichotomy is fully realized on the album’s final track, “Lay Me Bare,” a syncopated confessional peppered with a chipmunk’d vocal sample and mechanical trap hi-hat. He bleeds for five straight minutes, admitting his brief retreat from the spotlight in 2016 was a crisis of faith that left him depressed and isolated. He relives the pain of running into his absentee father, whose first words in years are to ask for a handout rather than forgiveness—the one moment where his otherwise plaintive delivery is infused with rage. Even his catharsis is violent (“Grab this gun and aim it there/Shoot my pain and slay my fear”), taking a street-wise approach to conquering his demons.
Stormzy’s biggest hits to date have all been testosterone-charged badman anthems, but he's also trying to reveal an artist with more than one dimension. It doesn’t always work—it’s hard to ignore the shortcomings of his singing voice, and the otherwise relatable lyrics on “Cigarettes & Cush” are mired by a trite composition. But from the themes to the production choices to the sequencing, it’s a remarkably well thought out debut from the ascendant 23-year-old MC.
Even more impressive, Stormzy’s rapid rise to relevance comes independent of the major label/commercial radio industrial complex. It’s hard to imagine a major putting out a debut LP from a hardcore battle rapper with a song like the smoochy “Velvet,” but maybe that’s the point—he doesn’t need them. He’s thus far made his living playing shows, releasing Spotify singles and low-budget YouTube videos, and hyping his favorite artists on his Beats 1 radio show, #Merky. And almost exactly two years after Kanye snuck him in the backdoor at the Brits, he strode into the 2017 ceremony on the red carpet, glad-handing with Bradley Walsh and cheesing for the cameras in a crisp Burberry suit. And when Ed Sheeran brought him onstage to debut his verse on the “Shape of You” remix, the crowd’s fervent reaction proved he was anything but backup.
