#backroad gee

Kane Robinson

Jedaiah Bannerman

Hope Ikpoku Jr

Teija Kabs

Demmy Ladipo

Cristale

BackRoad Gee.

Releasing on Netflix January 19th, 2024

It’s an exploration of a man trying to get out of a bad situation, and the thing that’s keeping him from doing it. But the story doesn’t resolve satisfyingly.

I don’t think I have gone this long without writing a review. There’s been plenty of good music coming out but none that I really have a ton to say about. Ghetts is easily top 3 UK Hip Hop artists / Grime MCs and I have been waiting for this album to come out for a while now. He definitely has the strongest and most consistent discography out of any of his peers as he never made a shitty pop album when everyone in the UK scene was doing that to make money in the late 2000s/early 2010s. There is no one who raps like him and he just seems to be getting better and better. With his last album, 2018′s Ghetto Gospel: The New Testament, it seemed like that was the album he had been working up to his entire career as it sounded more polished and it contained some of the best songs he’s ever made but now that Conflict Of Interest is finally out, it makes it seem like The New Testament was just a great step in order to get to this point. All of these factors, along with all of the incredible singles that dropped in promotion for this album set my expectations extremely high. I don’t think I have anticipated an album this much maybe since Bandana came out. With that being said and having listened to the album, those expectations were absolutely met and I haven’t stopped listening to it since. Like the cover art and title of the album suggest, there are different sides to Ghetts. There’s Justin, there’s Ghetto and there’s Ghetts, which are all different stages in his life and these stages have different interests. Justin wants to be the best father for his children and take care of his family while Ghetto wants to be the best MC and will take on any challenger for the title. And then there is Ghetts, who doesn’t want to be confined to any title, genre or any sort of limit—he wants to be the best artist he can be and push boundaries. This is explained at the beginning of the album version of Mozambique but all three of these components of Ghetts are combined to make this masterpiece of an album. One thing I didn’t know about until after my first listen was that this album was released through Warner. Ghetts has been independent for so long and with this album, he’s getting that attention by a major label that he deserves but he’s already an established artist, meaning he’s doing it on his own terms. Right off the bat, he comes through on the intro firing off sick lines like “Strap on the lap like a serviette.” Fine Wine makes for the perfect intro and then seamlessly transitions into the lead single, Mozambique, which is simply incredible. I have never heard a song like Mozambique. South African artist Moonchild Sanelly features on the hook, which is really good but I have never heard a hook on a rap song quite like that. Birmingham rapper JayKae spits on the second verse as well. Rude Kid deserves a standing ovation for the production on this song. The first beat is crazy good and I was blown away when he flipped Ghetts’s song Top 3 Selected for the latter part of his first verse. The second beat was the one that really blew me away as the transition made sense but that beat is so mean and Ghetts’s more slowed down flow on it made it stand out even more. The last 15 seconds on the song even made a lasting impression as the squealing G-Funk sound gives the song one final punch. Fire and Brimstone goes so hard and the Dizzee Rascal ad-libs were a nice addition. Hop Out is another banger in the same vein as Fire and Brimstone. The way Ghetts switches in and out of different flows on this song is crazy. IC3 is a long overdue collaboration between Ghetts and Skepta but the fact that it’s finally happening now makes it so much more special. The two legends have clashed before and have been on radio sets together and IC3 is definitely makes for an iconic moment in UK history because of all of the history in the Movement and Boy Better Know era which Ghetts mentions in another song. Skepta utilizing his classic lines from Autopsy and the clip of their radio set with Kano at the end of the song where they spit each other’s lyrics makes the song so much more perfect for their first song together after all these years. Skepta’s flow on the song is straight fire while Ghetts’s is more laid back but he is able to float over the beat and showcase his signature rhyming style. As I mentioned before, there are so many different stages in Ghetts’s life and career and Autiobigraphy does an amazing job of going back into some significant moments. This section of the album is definitely the most personal with songs like Dead to Me and Sonya. There is also 10,000 Tears, which features Ed Sheeran. I didn’t really know what to expect from this song as the last time these two collaborated was before Ed Sheeran became one of the biggest musicians ever. I do love this song a lot. If it was Ghetts by himself, it would be an amazing song and if it was Ed by himself it would also be amazing, which speaks to how good it actually is. Proud Family is a song about loving one’s family unconditionally that really touches the soul. I hope that fans who know a bit about Ghetts’s family through songs like Jess Song were touched by this song as much as I was. One of the best things about this song is the hook, which Ghetts sings himself. I didn’t know that when it was released as a single so I was really impressed that he sounded so good. The album then moves on to a run of songs that go super hard. Skengman sounds like what the theme song would be if Ghetts played James Bond. The beat is so menacing and like I said about IC3, Ghetts floats on the beat like no other and spits one of the best lines on the album which is “I was 19 with a gun twice my age.” He then comes back in on the third verse with a mean verse where he attacks the beat in the way that Ghetto would back in the 2000s. Stormzy comes through with a dope verse as well. He doesn’t normally get to rap like this on his own albums so it was really nice to hear him with Ghetts on their first collab since Bad Boys. This song really does sound like an epic movie scene. The song Squeeze also sounds like an epic movie scene. Speaking of James Bond, Ghetts had a sick line on Dead To Me where he raps “I thought we was bonding to live and let die / For your eyes only you know me I'm Roger Moore” in reference to two Roger Moore James Bond films. No Mercy goes so fucking hard and I really wish that I could see it performed live. The hook is kind of quirky in a really fun way. It’s very playful even though the song’s content is so mean. The song features Pa Salieu, who I believe is the next big thing to make a significant impression on the UK scene if he hasn’t already. I highly recommend listening to his mixtape Send Them To Coventry, which I sort of liked at first but has really grown on me with every listen—now I love it. The song also features Salieu’s close collaborator BackRoad Gee, who never fails to bring the energy plenty of adlibs. I knew Crud was going to be a banger before Ghetts started rapping and I was not wrong at all. He went in on the song and his hook was really fun as well. When Giggs came in on the song, he really made it his own. They rap so differently but the beat works well for both of them. Giggs is very hit or miss for me. Sometimes he can be really bad but when he tries he can do incredible things and this verse was hard. The album’s momentum builds and comes to an end at the climax, which is Little Bo Peep. I have never heard a hip hop song like this ever. Wretch 32′s hook sounded incredible and though it did what it needed to do, I think a verse from him would’ve been amazing. Speaking of amazing, Dave killed it and Hamzaa used this song as her time to shine. Although there are some amazing features and Ghetts is the star of the show, one star of this album is producer TenBillion Dreams, who produced half of the album. His production style is very unique and excelled at making Ghetts’s rapping style really stand out. This album also did a great job at showing how Ghetts’s rapping style has evolved over the years. He’s more mature and his verses are very carefully worded. The crazy rhyme schemes are still there but it sounds much different; it shows his growth as an artist. Speaking of rapping and production, this album is not really a grime album at all, which is something I don’t really care about that much because this album is so good, Ghetts has given us plenty of Grime over the years and he is not just a Grime MC. My one issue with this album is the length and that is it. Conflict Of Interest is an incredible album that shows all the different sides to an artist that has freed himself from any limits that people have tried to put on him. It also shows the evolution of Ghetts and how he’s worked his way up to this moment and that it has finally paid off.