Raskit is by far the most captivating, powerful release from Dizzee Rascal in at least a decade. It certainly won't spawn four number one U.K. pop hits the way his platinum-selling fourth album, Tongue N' Cheek, did, but it's a necessary re-evaluation and re-focus of his talents, and proves that he's far from finished.
Under the circumstances, the obvious thing to do would be to make a Boy in Da Corner redux, as if to remind everyone who was there first. Instead, Raskit is a sparse hip-hop album that attempts to re-establish Rascal not as a pioneer of grime but simply as a superior MC to his peers and followers.
On his sixth outing, grime’s first mainstream MC exposes pretenders to his crown. If 2013’s The Fifth was a rare, guest-heavy misstep that polished off rough edges to brazenly target a transatlantic audience, Raskit junks its predecessor’s egregious schmaltz for marauding bass and spartan trap backings.
As a platform for Dizzee's flashy lyrical dexterity, Raskit does more than enough to shift the bitter aftertaste of The Fifth. With more of the laser-eyed focus that marked Boy in Da Corner, it could have been a triumph.
If you’d pretty much given up on Dizzee Rascal sounding energised and vital again, Raskit should give you some heart. Figures like Stormzy can pick up the baton and carry on making grime crossover, but Dizzee is still just a rascal and doing his own thing.
The first half of Raskit is some of the most hard-nosed grime you'll hear all year, as well as some of Dizzee Rascal's strongest material since Boy in da Corner. Unfortunately, things go downhill fast shortly thereafter...
Raskit – his sixth album – is the veteran MC’s back-to-basics response, some of it predictable but much of it riveting.
It’s this tiredness that unfortunately defines the spirit of Raskit, a record which initially hits hard but then reveals itself as a somewhat shallow one written at the wrong time and for the wrong reasons.
At its core, Raskit is essentially a statement that Dizzee Rascal can still create a competitive grime album and write clever lines, delivering them with conviction. Dizzee Rascal is versatile with fierce tracks such as Space to light and playful tracks such as She Knows What She Wants showing he has the talent that he had in 2003. Although a few tracks fade into the background and the production lacks some creativity compared to his debut, Dizzee Rascal did what he needed to do lyrically and ... read more
1 | Focus 3:25 | 94 |
2 | Wot U Gonna Do? 3:23 | 100 |
3 | Space 3:52 | 97 |
4 | I Ain’t Even Gonna Lie 3:28 | 97 |
5 | The Other Side 3:35 | 93 |
6 | Make It Last 3:14 | 93 |
7 | Ghost 2:59 | 98 |
8 | Business Man 3:13 | 87 |
9 | Bop N Keep It Dippin 4:25 | 95 |
10 | She Knows What She Wants 3:23 | 85 |
11 | Dummy (16 For the Juice) 4:22 | 87 |
12 | Everything Must Go 3:21 | 96 |
13 | Slow Your Roll 3:50 | 95 |
14 | Sick a Dis 3:23 | 90 |
15 | Way I Am 3:21 | 86 |
16 | Man of the Hour 3:54 | 87 |
#19 | / | Q Magazine |
/ | Esquire (UK) |