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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Entertainment
Olive Pometsey

Add to playlist: the gloriously boisterous grime-metal of Native James and the week’s best new tracks

Native James, smiling widely with sunglasses, a grille, and ringed fingers touching his face
Quick-witted … Native James. Photograph: Sophie Webster

From Ipswich, UK
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“Laaa!” growls Native James on his 2025 track Fallen, stretching a wicked fried scream over more traditionally poppy “la-la-la” chants like a hair-raising metal frontman. Because, well, that’s what he is. But James is also a pretty deft rapper, the kind of artist who grew up listening to Evanescence during school lunchtimes then went home and studied first-wave grime on Channel U. The preceding verse on Fallen rattles through quick-witted bars over bouncy nu-metal riffs, blending Jamaican Patois with The Lion King references for a scorched-earth unmasking of his “demon within”. He’s raging in every sense of the word – and it sounds like a hell of a lot of fun.

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