The Unknown

UK hip-hop has begun to wake up and stretch its wings in recent years, decisively moving past a chequered history of ineptitude or indifference. Two veterans from back in the day, rare breaks predator Mark B and the windmillin’, body-poppin’, train-bombin’ scenester Blade have joined forces on The Unknown in a stab at Roots Manuva-style ubiquity.

While Blade still gets props for his undoubted dedication to the scene, he’s always sounded to these ears like he’s trying just that little bit too hard. The lyrical flows are, for the most part, dead on-target, but he never really seems to have any fun with his rhymes – it’s all deadly earnest stuff, landing somewhere in the no-man’s-land between Lyrics Born’s hard-hitting playfulness and Manuva’s horizontal abstraction.

Thanks to some uncharacteristically limp production from Mark B, the first half of the album is extremely forgettable (with the exception of the title track, which manages to spoil a sassy vocal cut with the same old “we’ve been soooo mistreated by an uncaring music industry” invective). It’s not until the later collaborations with Lewis Parker and Chester P that things get a little chunkier musically, and a little more inventive lyrically.

The creeping feeling of a missed opportunity is all-pervasive here. It’s certainly not a terrible album, but it’s not half as innovative as it needs to be to hold its own against the new skool mavericks. A grave disappointment.