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Track List
01) Bullet from a Gun
02) Greaze Mode 
03) Redrum
04) No Sleep
05) What Do You Mean?
06) Going Through It
07) Same Old Story
08) Love Me Not
09) Animal Instinct
10) Glow In The Dark
11) You Wish
12) Gangsta
13) Pure Water
01) Bullet from a Gun
02) Greaze Mode
03) Redrum
04) No Sleep
05) What Do You Mean?
06) Going Through It
07) Same Old Story
08) Love Me Not
09) Animal Instinct
10) Glow In The Dark
11) You Wish
12) Gangsta
13) Pure Water
2:51
2:48
3:56
3:12
3:31
3:15
3:21
3:24
3:09
2:55
2:47
3:19
3:11
Data Complete
50%
Total Rating
50%Total Rating
(0 users)
Back Cover
CD Art
3D Case
3D Thumb
3D Flat
3D Face
3D Spine
First Released
2019
Grime
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Medium
Album
0 copies
Album Description
Available in:
Ignorance Is Bliss is the fifth studio album by British grime artist Skepta. It was released on 31 May 2019 through Boy Better Know, and is the follow-up to his 2016 album Konnichiwa.
Background
In 2018, Skepta announced his next album would be titled SkLevel, but said in April 2019 that the title had been changed because "#SkLEVEL is a 2018 pattern. New year, new name."
Promotion
On 28 April 2019, Skepta announced the release via his social media, sharing the release date and cover art, which NME described as a "grid of nine thermal camera images". On 9 May 2019, Skepta released the single "Bullet from a Gun" for streaming and digital download. Later that day, Skepta released the second single "Greaze Mode" with Nafe Smallz.
User Album Review
Any rock band worth their leathers will at some point grandly declare that they will never record, tour, or speak to the bassist ever again after what happened in that sushi restaurant bathroom, but then reverse the decision a few years later. It channels one of music’s ancient energies: the comeback. Contentedly releasing an album every year doesn’t cut through the pop cultural noise – we want our stars to rise, fall so as to demonstrate their relatable humanity, and then rise again, in the neat three-act structure beloved of the recent rash of music biopics.
But what happens after the comeback is complete? It’s a question faced by Skepta, the Tottenham rapper who, in 2016, completed perhaps the most iconic return in black British music. A withering battle MC who once destroyed an opponent with the none-so-vivid line “blow your nose you fucking butt-nosed bastard”, he surfed grime’s first wave but crashed into an ill-fated major label deal, making cheesy pop with videos that looked like a lad-mag photoshoot. In a putative Skepta biopic, we would now cut to a long monologue to himself in a mirror followed by a snappily edited training montage. He returned with That’s Not Me, a self-flagellating renunciation of his tacky previous era, in which he announced all his Gucci was going in the bin, over a classic grime beat. The prodigal son narrative was irresistible, the US took notice, and he created what is by far his best album, Konnichiwa, which reached No 2, beat the late David Bowie to the Mercury prize and was nominated for three Brits. He became a mainstay at fashion week, dated Naomi Campbell, and, while high on acid, recorded 2018’s best rap track: Praise the Lord (Da Shine), with A$AP Rocky.
No longer the comeback kid, Konnichiwa’s follow-up needs to be a strong statement to maintain the same interest – and while it’s not as bold as its predecessor, Ignorance Is Bliss should still keep Skepta in outsized puffas for some time.
Perhaps due to the mic sparring of his early days, his central lyrical mode remains locked in: Skepta telling us how great Skepta is, set against faceless antagonists who want that greatness to remain unrealised. Given his success, the sense that he protests too much is palpable; the reflexive assertions of his skill suggest he’s still getting over his wilderness years.
Some of his metaphors are tired – The Matrix needs to be filed alongside suicide doors and Nia Long in the canon of utterly played-out rap cliches, as is needing a parachute for being too high, while US agony uncle Maury Povich is namechecked more for rhyme scheme than contemporaneity. Skepta’s assertion on Redrum that he will “slap” tracks “like Ike Turner” is horribly dissonant: an ugly comparison delivered with brilliant precision.
He’s stronger when he speaks plainly, particularly about affairs of the heart. Months after dating Naomi Campbell, he had his first child with an unnamed woman – this eventful romantic year suffuses Same Old Story. “Last week we’re talking forever / this week more fish in the sea”, he begins, before fretting over “body counts”: a woman’s number of previous partners, that seems to consume this peculiarly puritan generation of young men with sexual insecurity. The beautiful Bullet from a Gun, meanwhile, has the heartstopping line: “You realise she was never your girl, it was just your turn.”
The production, almost all of it by Skepta himself, subtly historicises him as straddling generations of British music. Gangsta is straight-up grime nostalgia, with battle bars (“I don’t know who you’re trying to impress, G / man can see that your man bag’s empty”), winningly cheap-sounding beats, and guest verses from his original Boy Better Know crew. Love Me cuts up Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s Murder On the Dancefloor into a UK garage track, Todd Edwards-style, with an appearance from old-school garage MC B-Live. Same Old Story has the same kind of wandering, fluting melody as XTC’s Functions on the Low, the grime instrumental that gave Stormzy his big break when he used it for Shut Up; Redrum and No Sleep use the east Asian instrumentation that so often featured in early grime productions. The best tracks, though, are ones like Bullet from a Gun and Pure Water, that clear a new lane, where the eskimo chill of grime meets the equally harsh minimalism of US trap.
Throughout it all is Skepta’s flow, honed by years spent in clashes, raves and booths into a formidable instrument. At times you can detect just a trace of Giggs’ style of emphatic punchlines, but the chief pleasure of this album is how much it allows Skepta to be Skepta: an MC who always looks, waits, then darts between the traffic of his beats. This sensual pleasure goes beyond lyrics and into pure music, and should sustain his career long past his recent triumphant homecoming. If that doesn’t work, he could just quit, and then change his mind six months later.
SOURCE: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/may/31/skepta-ignorance-is-bliss-review-boy-better-know
External Album Reviews
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User Comments
Available in:
Ignorance Is Bliss is the fifth studio album by British grime artist Skepta. It was released on 31 May 2019 through Boy Better Know, and is the follow-up to his 2016 album Konnichiwa.
Background
In 2018, Skepta announced his next album would be titled SkLevel, but said in April 2019 that the title had been changed because "#SkLEVEL is a 2018 pattern. New year, new name."
Promotion
On 28 April 2019, Skepta announced the release via his social media, sharing the release date and cover art, which NME described as a "grid of nine thermal camera images". On 9 May 2019, Skepta released the single "Bullet from a Gun" for streaming and digital download. Later that day, Skepta released the second single "Greaze Mode" with Nafe Smallz.
User Album Review
Any rock band worth their leathers will at some point grandly declare that they will never record, tour, or speak to the bassist ever again after what happened in that sushi restaurant bathroom, but then reverse the decision a few years later. It channels one of music’s ancient energies: the comeback. Contentedly releasing an album every year doesn’t cut through the pop cultural noise – we want our stars to rise, fall so as to demonstrate their relatable humanity, and then rise again, in the neat three-act structure beloved of the recent rash of music biopics.
But what happens after the comeback is complete? It’s a question faced by Skepta, the Tottenham rapper who, in 2016, completed perhaps the most iconic return in black British music. A withering battle MC who once destroyed an opponent with the none-so-vivid line “blow your nose you fucking butt-nosed bastard”, he surfed grime’s first wave but crashed into an ill-fated major label deal, making cheesy pop with videos that looked like a lad-mag photoshoot. In a putative Skepta biopic, we would now cut to a long monologue to himself in a mirror followed by a snappily edited training montage. He returned with That’s Not Me, a self-flagellating renunciation of his tacky previous era, in which he announced all his Gucci was going in the bin, over a classic grime beat. The prodigal son narrative was irresistible, the US took notice, and he created what is by far his best album, Konnichiwa, which reached No 2, beat the late David Bowie to the Mercury prize and was nominated for three Brits. He became a mainstay at fashion week, dated Naomi Campbell, and, while high on acid, recorded 2018’s best rap track: Praise the Lord (Da Shine), with A$AP Rocky.
No longer the comeback kid, Konnichiwa’s follow-up needs to be a strong statement to maintain the same interest – and while it’s not as bold as its predecessor, Ignorance Is Bliss should still keep Skepta in outsized puffas for some time.
Perhaps due to the mic sparring of his early days, his central lyrical mode remains locked in: Skepta telling us how great Skepta is, set against faceless antagonists who want that greatness to remain unrealised. Given his success, the sense that he protests too much is palpable; the reflexive assertions of his skill suggest he’s still getting over his wilderness years.
Some of his metaphors are tired – The Matrix needs to be filed alongside suicide doors and Nia Long in the canon of utterly played-out rap cliches, as is needing a parachute for being too high, while US agony uncle Maury Povich is namechecked more for rhyme scheme than contemporaneity. Skepta’s assertion on Redrum that he will “slap” tracks “like Ike Turner” is horribly dissonant: an ugly comparison delivered with brilliant precision.
He’s stronger when he speaks plainly, particularly about affairs of the heart. Months after dating Naomi Campbell, he had his first child with an unnamed woman – this eventful romantic year suffuses Same Old Story. “Last week we’re talking forever / this week more fish in the sea”, he begins, before fretting over “body counts”: a woman’s number of previous partners, that seems to consume this peculiarly puritan generation of young men with sexual insecurity. The beautiful Bullet from a Gun, meanwhile, has the heartstopping line: “You realise she was never your girl, it was just your turn.”
The production, almost all of it by Skepta himself, subtly historicises him as straddling generations of British music. Gangsta is straight-up grime nostalgia, with battle bars (“I don’t know who you’re trying to impress, G / man can see that your man bag’s empty”), winningly cheap-sounding beats, and guest verses from his original Boy Better Know crew. Love Me cuts up Sophie Ellis-Bextor’s Murder On the Dancefloor into a UK garage track, Todd Edwards-style, with an appearance from old-school garage MC B-Live. Same Old Story has the same kind of wandering, fluting melody as XTC’s Functions on the Low, the grime instrumental that gave Stormzy his big break when he used it for Shut Up; Redrum and No Sleep use the east Asian instrumentation that so often featured in early grime productions. The best tracks, though, are ones like Bullet from a Gun and Pure Water, that clear a new lane, where the eskimo chill of grime meets the equally harsh minimalism of US trap.
Throughout it all is Skepta’s flow, honed by years spent in clashes, raves and booths into a formidable instrument. At times you can detect just a trace of Giggs’ style of emphatic punchlines, but the chief pleasure of this album is how much it allows Skepta to be Skepta: an MC who always looks, waits, then darts between the traffic of his beats. This sensual pleasure goes beyond lyrics and into pure music, and should sustain his career long past his recent triumphant homecoming. If that doesn’t work, he could just quit, and then change his mind six months later.
SOURCE: https://www.theguardian.com/music/2019/may/31/skepta-ignorance-is-bliss-review-boy-better-know
External Album Reviews
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