Has Slowthai made an album of the year?

Tyron Kaymone Frampton is very well known for being Slowthai, born and raised in Northampton, having studied BTEC music technology in 2011, skipping a lot of school time to record music, and had a few different jobs before kicking off his music career, one being a job in retail going on to be fired for giving out his employee discounts to his mates.

His music career took off in 2016, after releasing his single ‘Jiggle’, then partnering with record label Bone Soda to release ‘I Wish I Knew’ EP in 2017, featuring his famous track ‘T n Biscuits’. Later that year, Frampton signed a recording contract with Method Records, helping him release his EP ‘Runt’ and his debut studio album ‘Nothing Great About Britain’ in 2019. The Guardian described this album as “Compelling, potent and profoundly grim: divided, wildly unequal” letting the public know that Slowthai is “clearly prepared to play with loaded imagery in a confrontational way”. Frampton is also known for being able to talk emotionally towards his family, especially in his track ‘Northampton’s Child’ when he talks about his mum's struggles as he was growing up, making a song to thank her for her troubles that she may have experienced. DIYMAG had said at the time of release that they believe Tyron believes that “Britain’s real heroes aren’t monarchs or politicians, but working-class mothers and drug dealers, who both hustle and make the best out of a difficult situation”.

However, after this album was released, Slowthai got himself into a bit of a problematic situation at the Hyundai Mercury Prize as he performed ‘Doorman’ and followed the performance with the words “Fuck Boris Johnson, fuck everything, and there’s nothing great about Britain”. During the performance, he was also holding a fake decapitated head of Boris Johnson on stage with him. Independent had said there was a “rapturous applause as he left the stage with the head”, with the host of the award also addressing the situation after he’d left the stage with the words “Slowthai, with his own views there”.

As time went on, Slowthai released his second studio album ‘Tyron’ with what can only be described as two sides of the rapper to be able to see, as shown when half of the titles are lowercase and the others uppercase, showing his two personalities, shown in an interview with Dazed, Tyron described this new album as “two sides of Tyron as person”, one of the person he used to be and the other being the person he hopes to become. In the interview, it was also said that “the songs on the first are driven by fury and resentment, while those on side two are tender and nuanced”. This quickly became a number one Official Charts album, staying in the top 100 for four weeks, dedicating the album award to anyone that has been or is in a dark place and of course, dedicated it to his hometown that he speaks so highly of, Northampton and often refers to the town as a person, like when he says “I’ve always carried you on my back - I wouldn’t be me without you”.

Slowthai had since then been quite quiet online, however, on November 7th 2022 he tok to Instagram with a fresh haircut, using his cut off hair to make a head shape with a face, posing next to it with the caption “album 3 done . ugly” and the comments of course, went crazy with remarks like “I feel like we ain’t ready for thisss” and “Anyone else keep checking in on his Instagram hoping there’s news? Because I am goddam hyped for this”. After this dropped, a lot of people had speculation that the album would be out before the end of the year, however, Tyron had never released a date in the post on Instagram. We didn’t hear anything else about the album for a few weeks until the new year in late January as he posted the album cover with a track list and the caption “at a time when I hated myself, creating this album saved me and taught me how to love myself” followed by “U GOTTA LOVE YOURSELF” with a pre-order link, however unless you had clicked on the link, you wouldn’t have found out the album was dropping on March 3rd 2023. The comments again, went mental, with a LOT of hearts and different emojis and lovely comments like “music is therapy! tell them!”, “SLOWTHAI, probably the best rapper in the world”, and “beautiful, you are a great role model for the teens of today”.

On January 26th, Slowthai had put together a livestream of him in a box full of mirrors and very minimal furniture, the livestream saw him using a pot as a toilet, emotional switches and a lot of smoking, all to preview his first single ‘Selfish’. A few weeks later the second single ‘Feel Good” dropped with a very heart-warming video of Frampton joining his fans in their homes, having a dance and a rap along with them, he came out on Instagram with the caption

“words can’t describe how it makes me feel being able to share my music with you. But i can’t help feeling a void, like i’ll never be able to thank you for making my dreams a reality. i can only try. with this video the aim was to give something back and share a moment with a dew people that the music has helped. this is the beginning and i only hope to do more but i just wanna say i love you and i hope you enjoy this video as much as i did making it”

He shortly after released a world tour announcement with eight shows but there are rumoured to be more at a later date as well as a lot of festival appearances from the rapper this year. To get involved in the pre-sale access you had to order the new album ‘UGLY’ which is a very smart marketing move from Ty. Another very clever move was the release of a ‘BEST NIGHT OF YOUR LIFE” tour, featuring very small pub venues in a range of places all around the UK, for example, Sunderland, Blackpool, Milton Keynes, London, Bath and, Northampton, starting from February 23rd and finishing in Northampton on album release day. The best part about this tour was that the tickets were just one pound as he had said that it’s important for him that people can have access to him and his music. This is something we’ve seen from Tyron before as in 2019, he had put on a tour for 99p and also ran a five pound ticketed tour in the same year.

‘UGLY’ has finally dropped today and the music is everything the fanbase could only have dreamed of, with some titles in uppercase just like the previous albums, sticking to the same theory of split personality within the rapper. The album opened with ‘Yum’ letting us know that he’d been “lacking motivation” and that he needed “an innervention” as he was doing a lot of different breathing techniques throughout the track, as well as talking us through a conversation that he had with his therapist, giving us a big insight in his life behind the mic, telling us how he was told to learn to breathe, giving us continuous steps that he had been told which could also be very helpful to any of his fans that had been listening.

The therapist is also shown in track ‘Fuck It Puppet” as this is apparently the name that was given to Slowthai for his self-destructive devil on his shoulder. Talking about how he’s very impulsive, talking a lot about drugs and being in situations he may not want to be in. From the line “Been up from early ‘cause I’m gonna relapse” he is talking very strongly on a different perspective from himself or someone that he may know relapsing on drugs. Saying things like “All the good I done, why they focus on the bad?” and “I was tryna stop drugs, drugs stopped me in my tracks”. Going on to what is seen to be a conversation between the angel and devil that appear on his shoulders as the next bar is a quotation from the devil “Here, my brother, go on, have another”, shown again when his bars say one thing and the adlibs say another for example, “I’m not depressed (No, you’re not)” followed by “Wanna kill myself (Good)”. As the song ends with Tyron addressing the fact he’s blocked the devils number from his phone, potentially letting go of that part of his life.

The feedback from this album so far has been wild, especially in places like the Slowthai Discord page with a lot of mans talking about going to tour shows, making friends with the same interests and expressing their opinions on the album, for example, when the album was released at midnight a lot of the comments were drawn to his heartfelt track ‘never again’, in which he paints a picture and tells us a story of a relationship he had previously with a girl that unfortunately was murdered by her new partner, the comments were so wholesome, for example, “this album is perfection, listened to it in the dark and ‘never again’ nearly had me crying man, i haven’t cried in a while”, “25% club and never again are beautiful”, and “never again makes me want to bash my head against a wall in a good way”.

The reception from this album has been so wholesome and happy for the rapper to have released something so personal, we hope to see nothing but greatness from Slowthai this year and we can’t wait to see him perform all over the world this summer. Let us know your favourite track on ‘UGLY’ and be sure to stream the album!