“I think I’m Kanye mixed with Donny Hathaway,” raps Stormzy on the title track of his third album, This is What I Mean. There’s definitely a touch of the troubled West’s ambitious alchemy to the track, which pirouettes from a pretty piano intro (think child’s ballet rehearsal) into an elating, bass-blast of braggadocio, given dramatic ballast with operatic backing vocals.
But there’s really more of Hathaway to Croydon-born grime star. Not just because of the jazzy warmth with which this album leans into its soulful balladry. It’s there in the rich, stable sincerity of his vocals. Like Hathaway, 29-year-old Michael Owou Jr has a voice that can reach through the darkness and steady your heart. Even if you didn’t know that Stormzy’s the kind of national treasure who invests in scholarship schemes to support Black kids through Cambridge University, his decency feels embedded in his frequency. It's backed up here by lyrics that feel emotionally accountable. Take “Hide & Seek”. On this gently melodic track, he is searching for forgiveness from a woman who's “good for me like collard greens”. The older he gets, the better the conversational-confessional flow of his rapping, which allows him to stroll through a 10-minute bragathon like “Mel Made Me Do It” without breaking a sweat or losing the listener’s attention. He raps about trips to Dubai and giving up weed like he’s sitting beside you at a London bus stop.
