When Drake brought out J Hus at a London show in April 2019 following his surprise release from prison, the words immediately on everybody’s lips were ‘new J Hus album’ due to the huge disparity in time between his release and the 2017 debut album Common Sense.
On Monday 23rd January, leaks began to emerge online of the new album, and I believe this
forced J Hus and his camp to react and bring forward the release date for Big Conspiracy.
The East London rapper, going by the nickname of ‘Juju J’, who also admitted in practicing
black magic took to twitter to vent his frustrations tweeting: “I wake up and heavily curse
anyone plotting against me.” This was then followed by a video on Wednesday announcing
that the new album (except from the Ella Mai song which still requires clearing) would be
landing on Friday.
Big Conspiracy kicks off with a melodic introduction where we hear a soft guitar before the
rapper enters with the hook. The production from the up-and-coming TSB is truly amazing
and he is definitely one to watch for the future after a strong end to 2019. The unknown
‘iceè tgm’, who is apparently the rapper’s sister, features on this track and her backing
vocals on the hook is one of my favourite things about the album as her voice complements
her brothers so well.
J Hus, who has done so well in his career to avoid being pinned down to just one genre
while still being respected as one of the pioneers of afroswing, continues to jump between
melodic, raw, and commercial sounds throughout the album. The third track on the album,
‘Fight for Your Rights’ (produced by TSB), sounds like something that could slot in and have
commercial success in the US while still having a mysterious contemporary British feel which
is brought around by the backing vocals inserted every few bars.
One of my favourite verses is on this song “Skinny man but I'm rollin' heavy // I saw boydem flyin' in
the helli' // It was a big dilemma like Nelly and Kelly // Made a list of all
my goals like my name is Earl // I was a real ni**a till I fucked my ni**a's girl // The only way to repay him is to give him the world // And when I get my own wife, he can fuck her as well.”
Following the first three tracks where a dark sound is often heard, possibly influenced by Hus’s time in prison, we hear the rapper being more jubilant and victorious for the first time with songs such as ‘Triumph’ and ‘Play Play’, with Burna Boy featuring on the latter.
Burna Boy offers a joyous hook and I could certainly see this, as well as ‘Cucumber’, being a hit
come summertime. The rapper tweeted some time ago that Koffee would be featuring on the album and I was eager to hear this as I thought the two would gel well together. ‘Repeat’ did not disappoint with the lively bass ensuring that for those whose this was their first exposure to Dancehall were left with a good impression. ‘Fortune Teller’ offers a hard- hitting version of J Hus that was extremely prominent in his come-up. The distorted vocals on the hook is another impressive piece of production which is a reoccurring theme throughout the album. Big Conspiracy has set the bar high for the rest of UK albums to be released this year. Yet again, the rapper seems to have found his own niche and offer something that has not been heard before in the ever-evolving UK rap scene.
On a side note, it is nice to see his influence on others already coming through with PA Salieu having success with ‘Frontline’ which was clearly inspired by J Hus. The best compliment that I can pay is that almost every song sounds like it could be a hit-single, yet the album still has a strong coherent theme throughout. It is fair to say that his absence was felt, and it is good to have Hus back with an
outstanding body of work.
8.5/10
Comments
Post a Comment