There have been a variety of theories posited about the steady but inexorable rise of 23-year-old Cian Wright, from viral sensation – thanks to a 40-second clip of him leaning out of a car window, rapping with such so-what detachment that you keep expecting him to shrug – to the Top 10. He submits one himself on his debut mixtape as Clavish. “I don’t even rap,” he says. “I illustrate”.
Listening to Rap Game Awful, you see what he means. His worldview is strikingly drawn and bleak, devoid of politicking, expressions of anger at societal injustice or indeed optimism: this is just what it’s like, he seems to say, and it’s unlikely to change. Life on the streets is an endless, numbing round of cheffings and nittys and opps getting splashed, “anxiety through the roof”. Reputations are built on acts of violence that he seems to grasp are pointless (“What a goal,” he deadpans after describing stabbing a “little dickhead” while friends cheer his character on) and the fear of imminent death is constant. Jail, he suggests on Monday to Sunday, can feel like an upgrade, on the grounds that you’re less likely to get killed behind bars: “I’d rather them birded off than graveyard visits.”
