26 February 2023
Newsdesk
Further to achieving the #1 position with his critically acclaimed, third album ‘This Is What I Mean’ and offering up a stand-out performance at this year's BRIT Awards, British musician Stormzy has returned with a majestic remix of ‘Hide & Seek’ featuring Nigerian superstar Rema! Produced by Afrobeat producers Niphkey and Finito, the alternative version features a brand new verse courtesy of the 22-year-old rising musician, providing a richer afro-infused sound to the already intimate and delicate offering. To date, the original version of ‘Hide & Seek’ has achieved over 70 million global streams, is certified Silver in the UK and previously accomplished 7 consecutive weeks in the UK top 10!
Over the course of his expansive, heartfelt and defiantly sprawling #1 album, the BRIT and Ivor Novello award-winning, Stormzy delivered an undeniable classic; effortlessly condensing any number of disparate styles and genres into music which bravely broaches any gap between modern Black British music, soul and hip-hop.
A bold and courageous leap forward from his critically acclaimed previous two #1 records, ‘Gang Signs & Prayer’ and ‘Heavy Is The Head’, this isn’t music simply for the pop charts but rather, an intimate and sincere love letter to music. He speaks on forgiving his absent father on the mellifluous ‘Please’ and refers to his challenges with paranoia, depression and self-doubt on penultimate track, ‘I Got My Smile Back’ - which also features a guest vocal from the incomparable India.Arie. It’s a record which showcases intensely personal and lyrical themes which in turn lay bare the vulnerabilities, regret, frailties, healing, joy and triumph in a manner and to an extent that reframes the notion of what rap artists traditionally might do and be.
The confidence which drove the album stemmed from a deeper and far more spiritual place than we have seen from Stormzy previously. For all the success and awards that he has accrued during his brief, meteoric career, the lockdown that ensued from the coronavirus pandemic gave him one commodity he’d long lacked: time. And thanks to his sense of accomplishment following Glastonbury he was, for the first time, in a position to make the most of it.
Much of the creative energy that shaped the album emerged from a Stormzy music camp in Osea Island – a remote island in the Essex estuary that’s only accessible via a Roman Causeway for four hours a day at low tide. Surrounded by leading-edge producers and musicians each and every morning they would eat and pray together and then spend the rest of the time driven to creative heights by each other's talents. “When you hear about music camps they always sound intense and sombre,” says Stormzy. ““People saying: “We need to make an album.” “We need to make some hit records.” But this felt beautifully free. We’re all musicians but we weren’t always doing music. Some days we played football or walked around taking pictures. And the bi-product to that was very beautiful music. Because when you marry that ethos with world class musicians and the best producers, writers and artists in the world, and we’re in one space, that’s a recipe for something that no one can really imagine. You can’t even calculate what that’s going to come up with. And it came up with a big chunk of this album.”
The net result is that while ‘This Is What I Mean’ sounds very much like Stormzy, it sounds like no Stormzy album you have ever heard before.
