Slowthai
(Picture: Getty Images)Slowthai confirmed his still-fresh status as a chart-topping pop star with his supremely confident performance at the first of two back-to-back nights in Brixton, the Northampton rapper’s first full London headline show since his second album, Tyron, hit the Number One slot last year. He even thanked the audience for helping to make his recent house purchase possible.
Born Tyron Kaymone Frampton, the 27-year-old grime-punk MC spent most of this booming, fast-moving set perched atop a spectacular stage shaped like a triangular rooftop, a simple but powerful design framed by towering white walls that served as video screens. Fire cannons blazed throughout the evening, lending an edge of heavy metal melodrama to more cinematic tracks such as Mazza and Psycho, the later built around a screeching string loop that cleverly referenced Alfred Hitchcock’s classic thriller of the same name. Performing the entire set alone, aside from a couple of brief vocal cameos, was a commanding gesture in the spirit of Drake, Kanye and Kendrick Lamar. Slowthai is playing in the Premier League now.
But his rise to fame has had its wobbles, notably a prickly exchange with comedian Katherine Ryan at a 2020 awards show, which many condemned as boorish sexism. In fairness, Slowthai later apologised and blamed his behaviour on heavy drinking, a habit he has now kicked. He then seemed to backtrack on his defiantly unapologetic track Cancelled, an early highlight of this show, sadly without its original guest vocalist, London grime star Skepta. But Slowthai is smart enough to grasp that mainstream success requires reining in his machismo and highlighting his more endearing, sensitive side. This is a young man with “Sorry Mum” tattooed on his chest, after all.
While most of this set bounced along with a relentless, pummelling energy that left little room for subtlety or introspection, Slowthai was careful to balance chest-thumping social-realist bangers such as Vex and Drug Dealer with more reflective interludes including I Tried, a confessional account of suicidal feelings, and the bittersweet Push, which featured a guest appearance by London-based US singer Deb Nevers.
He also earned huge cheers for his eccentric but heartfelt tribute song to frontline medical staff, NHS, and for gushing about the life-changing joys of recently becoming a father. Video footage of an in utero baby later played during Feel Away, a sweetly soulful ballad co-written by electro-folk crooner James Blake.
More punky tracks including Inglorious, Doorman and a new song, possibly titled Feel So Good, recast Slowthai as a kind of solo cousin of fellow East Midlanders Sleaford Mods, chanting simple slogans over crunchy, propulsive, mechanised beats. But even if he sometimes plays to the lowest common denominator, it was clear from this mostly exhilarating show that Frampton has broader musical and emotional horizons ahead.
