The Singles Jukebox

A full 8 years since we’ve covered these folks — what is time anyway…

[Video]
[6.55]

Nortey Dowuona: Stormzy had it all. He was the highest up in the UK grime scene, the best-known British MC worldwide; he had the Banksy vest, he was the one. Then the pandemic happened, he got into Christianity hardcore, he had choirs on his albums, and he and Maya Jama finally broke up. But strangely, this seems to have liberated him. After all, he still established MerkyBooks, Merky FC, that lil scholarship for a couple black kids. All he built hasn’t crumbled — it survived. Now he can relax and get back to more immediate, arrogant and boisterous MCing; thus, this song. The screeching little riff that keeps popping up in the beginning is snapped so harshly out of existence by the drum-and-bass drop that when the drums slip out for 2000s-type breakbeats, the energy never comes down. Big Mike back in the yard, fucking shit up — but like Antonio Rüdiger.
[9]

Alfred Soto: With the sonic verities of grime resistant to Brexit, Boris Johnson, and new loft construction, it’s a pleasure to hear Stormzy growl through this almost perfunctory demonstration of relevance. Standing pat is standing tall — for now.
[7]

Taylor Alatorre: “Don’t tell us how it used to be, just tell us how it is.” Chase & Status are at a point in their career where their last three albums haven’t even gotten Wikipedia articles written about them, and Stormzy’s place at the top of grime’s hierarchy has been bloodlessly toppled by Central Cee. There’s a chip on the shoulder of this collab, a palpable sense that one’s laurels are a false comfort, because you’re only really as good as your latest festival banger. That fear of fading can paralyze, but in this case it hones and focuses. Drum and bass formalism is politely nodded at but is mostly repurposed for parts, used to fashion nimble musical phrases that veer sharply around corners, defying easy prediction while remaining punchy and cleanly legible. The aggression is of an inviting warm-blooded kind, with Stormzy dissing house music more out of deference to his guests than from genuine animus — he does still call himself a singer, after all. There’s enough mutual trust going on for Stormzy to be given the task of orchestrating the drop, his staggered vocals injecting the title phrase with more heft than it logically should have.
[8]

Scott Mildenhall: More power to the Chase & Status resurgence, as more power is needed. “Backbone” is regrettably tepid for a duo that burst through and back with hits of intensity. Neither they nor Stormzy leave first gear, ensuring that they stay upright and little more. It’s not robotic, but it only has Walcott on the bench.
[6]

Katherine St. Asaph: You don’t get to diss “all that fuckin’ house shit” on a track that comes this close to all that fuckin’ brostep shit.
[2]

TA Inskeep: LTJ Bukem and MC Conrad (RIP) walked almost 30 years ago so that Chase & Status and Stormzy could run to a #1 UK single. Hearing DnB hitting the top in 2024 will never not make me happy.
[7]

Jonathan Bradley: Stormzy’s hook aims for the eerie simplicity of ScHoolboy Q’s “Collard Greens,” but its sing-song is of the nursery-rhyme kind. He brings some bluster on his verses, telling us many times how unimpressed he is with these “pussies” and pronouncing the word with the insistence of a schoolyard bully who hopes the force of the insult alone might establish his authority. The maniacally spurting synth sounds more worrying, but a brisk drum-and-bass rhythm reassures: the beat and the low end are why we’re here. Everything else is unnecessary distraction.
[5]

Mark Sinker: Fragment of a harder (or anyway more chaotic) DnB version can be found on IG, which some will prefer as it definitely moves the focus back to the production duo (now half as old as time, or even as me). In the official release they do seem to be backing out of Stormzy’s way, maybe because as self-announcing defiance goes, his rap seems rambling and querulous — opaque in a good way, but also kind of small-time? Uneasy stands the dad who wears the crown. 
[7]

Isabel Cole: Makes me feel like an American studying abroad, in that I’m pretty sure I’m overrating this because of the accent.
[6]

Ian Mathers: There will always be a space for tracks that fulfill the important criterion of “I think I could run through a wall if I was listening to this loud enough and timed it so I hit the right moment and the wall simultaneously.”
[8]

Jacob Sujin Kuppermann: It would do this track a disservice to spend too much analyzing its relative merits and demerits; this is extremely effective music to get rowdy to, and I hope that you take this time to do so in whatever way you see fit.
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