A bedrock piece of UK hip hop, complicated by its relentless use of samples from a contemporary gritty teledrama called Made in Britain. Via endless samples, Tim Roth's 16 year-old Trevor argues with social workers, raging against the system, fearless and explosive, Will Hunting via Sid Vicious, putting his stamp all over the record.
The actual songs are autobiographical, but disjointed - Skinnyman tips back and forth between superstar swagger and scrappy survivalism, without a clear where-I-came-from / where-I'm-at throughline. Which would be fine, but -- look, it can't be overstated how present those Made in Britain Samples are. It's gotta be 10-20% of the total runtime. Skinnyman wants it both ways, to appropriate all that wit and rage and to tell his own story in intimate terms, winding someone else's narrative through a set of songs that don't follow one themselves.
It's muddy. But in as it bounces around in your memory, it works. The album as made is wildly more interesting than the songs would've been on their own, but it also makes for a pretty specific kind of listen; someone flipping between a radio play and a rap album, connected, but barely.
It helps that the songs're solid, full of exciting production, plenty of variation, and lines at that sweet spot of structure. There's lots of end-of-line rhymers, but its simple enough to have that veneer of improvisation, with just enough doubleups to keep you on your toes. The kid's got real flow.
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Without a close listen or a little research, you'd be forgiven for thinking all those samples are the man himself, recorded from some actual sessions or something. It'd work better if it were true. All the movie's rage feels unearned, and Skinnyman seems like a bit of a wannabe for latching onto it. But it's a bold move, and a totally unique album.
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God, I feel like I put a "but" clause in just about every paragraph here -- it's that kind of album though: split, conflicted, and almost certainly more interesting for it 4/5
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