On this follow-up to Nothing Great about Britain, Northampton’s finest export makes it personal by entitling this sophomore album after his christian name. Straightaway, the listener is prepared for some confessional diatribes ; yet, the content here is often revelatory, set against a varied sonic backdrop that never lets your ears settle, keeping you emotionally on your toes with an appealing, sometimes unsettling intensity bubbling in the foreground.

The fact that his stage name is slowthai – note no caps – seems to evoke a lack of ego, unlike the vast majority of more mainstream rap stars. It is the painfully personal nature of Tyron’s lyrical concerns and his unerring ability to concoct grime ballads like ‘push’ that allow him to stand out in an increasingly crowded marketplace, even with the spectre of Covid looming over our lives.

The often disconcerting honesty and the raw pain that pulses throughout his street poetry is disarming and, at times, deeply moving. Through exposing his own vulnerabilities on ‘nhs’ – “It always rains when it's sunny” and imparting a level of universal reassurance becomes weirdly comforting, even though he depicts life as “the same old shit, different day”.

This reaches its pinnacle on ‘feel away’, where he is “half the man I used to be” and is helped along the rocky pathway strewn with broken hopes by the intoxicating, ghostly presence of James Blake and here, it just works. You can hear it in how Tyron’s voice changes imperceptibly as the song reaches its blissful conclusion – always too soon, always. It is this teasing aspect to each track, some clocking up just over 2 minutes in length, that keeps your ears coming back for more, scrabbling frantically to pick up on the syllabic gems that he keeps on dropping into the dark, subterranean musical soundtrack.  Oh yeah, his vocals – I’ve not encountered anything like them since early Eminem or the crazed proclamations of Westside Gunn – like every verse is like drawing a seemingly last breath: unerringly VITAL. The desperation in some of his verbal deliveries is essential, yet unnerving.

Tyron embraces fear, welcomes the darkness but he wants to embrace the light when it emerges. Like he says – “I never felt love before the drugs” and “everything is negative” are subtly juxtaposed with hopeful intonations like “I tried to make it out of the rubble / and I rose like a diamond did” and “let me live my life”. So, whilst he experiences hurt and despair, there is light, burning bright, hard on your face. ‘CANCELLED’, featuring Skepta is a case in point: furious, assertive, empowering and reinforcing the idea that grime involves a method of raw, clear communication about the harshness of daily existence for many humans; that solutions are not simple but you can survive and be successful by just being brilliant and original.

Tyron is neither pure hip hop nor pure grime. I am reminded, weirdly of post-Massive era Tricky and his disorienting solo work that explored a night-time space, lighting up the 3am shadows with shafts of industrial, sonic interference. Yet, here, the soporific rhythms are sped up, bleeding with urgency and renewed, slightly twisted vigour. This dystopian vision still offers hope, determination, and a palpable sense that achievement is possible: “a chain is only as strong as its links // what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.”

slowthai might be deliberately lower case but his persona stays electric, eschewing negativity for something approaching resolution. As a result, on ‘i tried’, you, dear listener, can experience the rush of melody and raw street knowledge that characterises the very best of modern music  influenced and moulded by its immediate physical and emotional environment.

If originality and honesty, with absolutely no punches pulled, coupled with a fiery, emotional core are your way out this mess, seek out this missile of selfless truth and dented beauty.

TYRON by slowthai is out now on the Method White label.

Hugh Ogilvie