“Tonight’s my f***ing night,” Stormzy proclaims to a packed-out O2 arena on Sunday evening. He isn’t wrong. The south London rapper has been headlining festivals and selling out shows for so long, it’s hard to believe tonight is his first time playing the London arena. “I’m home,” he grins to an audience already on their feet. After all, it’s their night too. The majority of the 20,000 people in the stands purchased their tickets over two years ago. Delayed for two years, Stormzy’s tour for his second album, Heavy Is the Head, is finally underway.
That record won over any doubters who remained after his rapturously received debut, 2017’s Gang Signs & Prayer. It showed a rapper equally at ease with doling out brutal eviscerations of the government as he is cheeky ripostes to critics, both big (fellow grime star Wiley) and small (an Instagram user whose angry voicenote demanding Stormzy “release some f***ing music, d***head” opens the entire album). Stormzy’s 2019 incendiary Glastonbury set cemented his reputation as a household name. And if there were any concern that time lapsed between then and now would’ve dulled the hype, it is instantly drowned out by the screams that meet Stormzy’s arrival as he descends onto the stage with an explosive triptych of fan favourites: two off his latest record (“Big Michael” and “Audacity”), plus an oldie (2015’s “Know Me From”).
