Skepta, Chip, and Young Adz Took No Breaks – “Insomnia” (Album Review)
“Waze” the first single released off this project starts off with Chip reminding listeners that, “If three man try link up and do an album, it's not gonna sound like this”, and he’s right. Practically unannounced, proven grime legends Skepta and Chip teamed up with Young Adz of D-Block Europe, to drop a 12-track album titled Insomnia.
I first heard about Skepta when he dropped Konnichiwa in 2016. It was around that time that I was becoming familiar with the UK music scene through a family friend from London. He had come to visit during the winter break and put me onto grime as well as UK drill. As soon as I found out about these genres of music I’ve been loosely following them. Specifically, the first Skepta track I was vibing to was “That’s Not Me” featuring, his brother, JME. I remember immediately thinking that it was different than the trap and rap I usually listen to, but still, it had a lot of the same elements; mans were spitting bars on a tumping beat. After listening to Konnichiwa, I realized Skepta was a poet with his wordplay and storytelling. I was intrigued by the fact that I related to a lot of his bars even though he was from a whole different continent (soccer references, lingo, etc). I related to him more than a lot of American artists from the south. This also helped me realize that the diaspora in London and Toronto are very similar. It was interesting that music was able to inform me about culture. A lot of my friends liked the album as much as I did, and when we heard he was coming to Toronto on tour, we copped tickets ASAP (praise da lord). To this day, that was one of the best concerts I have ever been to- definitely top 3. After that day, I have paid close attention to Skepta’s music and have been following his releases. His album Ignorance Is Bliss, that dropped last year, and a bunch of features such as ‘Praise da Lord’ with A$AP Rocky, ‘Bad Energy’ with Wizkid and more have made a mix that I put together with his latest album Insomnia. You can that you can listen to here.
I haven’t listened to Chip too much but every song I have heard, he spits dope bars. He has been in the UK rap scene for 10+ years and has dropped 15+ projects. I appreciated his witty punchlines and clean flows throughout Insomnia.
I’ve been hearing a lot about D-Block Europe this year because of how “American” their music sounds. Before I get into their music, I want to talk about their name. I know of D-Block because The Lox (Jadakiss, Styles P, and Sheek Louch) kept shouting it out in their songs, I associated it as being another name for their crew. I just assumed they established a European extension of the crew, thus “D-Block Europe”. I was right. Although D-Block Europe consists of London based rappers Young Adz and Dirtbike LB, a majority of the beats they rap on are American trap beats. Young Adz even uses heavy autotune and adlibs which remind me of trap artists from Atlanta. D-Block Europe were the first UK artists I heard to have features from popping American artists. For example, they got a Lil Baby feature on “Nookie” and Offset on “Rich”.
Unlike most collab albums, Insomnia features all three artists on every single track of the project. The album opens with “Mains”, produced by Skepta himself. The beat includes a flute melody with hard kicks and hi-hat rolls. There are no choruses breaking up the verses, just to start and end off the track. Most of the album is like that; Skepta, Chip, and Young Adz all seamlessly taking turns barring off.
The second track “Golden Brown” shows a smoother side to the artists with Skepta actually singing the chorus on top of a groovy bassline. The beat is produced by The Fanatix, a UK production group that has made hits for artists like Giggs and Popcaan.
After that was the single “Waze”, which we think is gonna be the most poppin track. They released the track with a dope video a couple of days before the album came out. This was the song to include an American producer on the album. CardoGotWings (Young Adz bag), who worked on Drake’s “God’s Plan” and has worked with other artists such as Travis Scott and Kendrick Lamar, got sole production credits.
The track that follows, “Demons”, is my favourite track. The eerie bell melody with HARD 808s and dope verses make it for me. It also includes the only credited feature, Dirtbike LB, the second member of D-Block Europe.
The rest of the album follows in the same vein. As mentioned, all the beats are dope, and all the verses are sick. In an interesting move, the last track on the album is the “Intro” 🙃. It is the shortest track on the album and each artist only has a quick verse, still, it might be the hardest track. It definitely is the last song on Insomnia, but it could also be the beginning… of their next album. We’ll be sure to listen.