This Is What I Mean

Stormzy (#Merky/0207 Def Jam) ★★★★☆

You wouldn’t describe Stormzy’s new album as unassuming. It is, after all, a record on which he compares himself to a cross between “Kanye West and Donny Hathaway”. And its best lyrics come on My Presidents Are Black, on which the self-styled “community provider, multiple diss track survivor” takes aim at music industry racism, has a colourful pop at the government (“tell Michael Gove we got something for your nose”) and indulges in a vast amount of hugely entertaining flexing.

It’s a noticeably more introverted and personal album than either of its predecessors. If Stormzy’s back catalogue offers a tonal comparison point, it is Heavy Is the Head’s penultimate track Lessons, which was gentle, hazy and driven by an electric piano that vaguely recalled mid-70s Stevie Wonder. Lessons concerned itself with the collapse of the rapper’s relationship with TV presenter Maya Jama, and relationship woe is very much the prevalent theme here. If it’s about the same woman (and the tabloids are reporting that the pair recently reconciled), then he has done an awful lot of pining for her over the last three years.

As it turns out, Stormzy is as good at painting a picture of romantic woe as he is at wittily dissing his rivals and telling racists where to get off. But for the most part, This Is What I Mean sticks to subtlety and nuance. He’s clearly reached a level of celebrity where his audience are invested not just in the music but in Stormzy himself: if they’re willing to follow him down a more inwardlooking path, This Is What I Mean is a good reward.