Stormzy shares details of new album This Is What I Mean

Having teased us last month with the fabulous 'Mel Made Me Do It', the British hip hop superstar has confirmed the November 25 unleashing of his third album, This Is What I Mean.

"A bold, brave and courageous leap forward from his critically acclaimed previous two #1 records, Gang Signs & Prayer and Heavy Is The Head, this isn’t music simply for the pop charts but rather, an intimate love letter to music and one that showcases intensely personal and lyrical themes which lay bare the vulnerabilities, regret, frailties, healing, joy and triumph in a manner and to an extent that reframes the notion of what rap artists traditionally might do and be," says the promo blurb.

"The confidence which drove the album stemmed from a deeper and far more spiritual place than we have seen from Stormzy previously. For all the success and awards that he has accrued during his brief, meteoric career, the lockdown that ensued from the coronavirus pandemic gave him one commodity he’d long lacked: time. And thanks to his sense of accomplishment following Glastonbury he was, for the first time, in a position to make the most of it.

"Much of the creative energy that shaped the album emerged from a Stormzy music camp in Osea Island – a remote island in the Essex estuary that’s only accessible via a Roman Causeway for four hours a day at low tide. Surrounded by leading-edge producers and musicians (who will all be unveiled in due course), each and every morning they would eat and pray together and then spend the rest of the time driven to creative heights by each other's talents."

Reflecting on all of that, Stormzy himself says: “When you hear about music camps they always sound intense and sombre. People saying: 'We need to make an album. We need to make some hit records.' But this felt beautifully free. We’re all musicians but we weren’t always doing music. Some days we played football or walked around taking pictures. And the bi-product to that was very beautiful music. Because when you marry that ethos with world class musicians and the best producers, writers and artists in the world, and we’re in one space, that’s a recipe for something that no one can really imagine. You can’t even calculate what that’s going to come up with. And it came up with a big chunk of this album.”

The full track-listing is:

1. Fire + Water
2. This Is What I Mean
3. FireBabe
4. Please
5. Need You
6. Hide & Seek
7. My Presidents Are Black
8. Sampha’s Plea
9. Holy Spirit
10. Bad Blood
11. I Got My Smile Back
12. Give It To The Water