GANG - Headie One & Fred Again.. (2020)

GANG is the eighth mixtape released by UK drill star Headie One. Released in April, it follows on from his highest-charting release Music x Road which dropped just seven months earlier. GANG is the first official collaborative album by producer/songwriter Fred Again.., despite producing and helping write eleven tracks on Ed Sheeran’s album No.6 Collaborations Project. Fred Again.. has been active since the mid-2010s and has featured on everything from BTS to Westlife. GANG is where he showcases why he deserves recognition. Much like Fred Again.., Headie One (moniker of Irving Adjei) has been around since the mid-2010s. Through some hard-hitting tracks with artists like Dave, Stormzy and Young T & Bugzy, he has finally managed to assert himself as someone to be taken seriously. Headie One grew up on the “infamous” Broadwater Farm housing estate in Tottenham. After struggling with crime as a teen, he began to take rapping seriously after his first stint in prison. His first EP Headz or Tails was self-released in 2014, and since then Headie has gone from strength to strength. GANG is a perfect example of this development.

The mixtape opens with ‘Told’, a reworking of the Music x Road title track. Some of the lyrics from ‘Music x Road’ have been redistributed in ‘Told’, almost as a reiteration of the points made in ‘Music x Road’. Lyrical themes of family, gang code and black magic are expressed over a more rhythmic and experimental beat for a drill artist. This is where Fred Again..’s expertise can be appreciated; the drill beats on ‘GANG’ and ‘Know Me’ are still incredible, but it is the songs in between where he shows his worth. ‘The Boys (Interlude)’ (also known as ‘Tyron (Interlude)’) uses a delicate piano melody behind a heavily reverbed slowthai. The track gradually leads into a drill bassline when Headie comes in but still uses this high-pitched piano to juxtapose the dark timbre. Similarly, ‘Smoke (feat. Jamie xx)’ follows the electronic example set by ‘Told’. The song that relies on the four-to-the-floor notion as seen in disco and electronic (i.e. The xx). The varied beats over a relatively consistent flow from Headie show an aspiration to change what UK drill is about.

GANG leans heavily on the importance of the drums as a determiner of how the track will pan out. Take ‘Charades’ and ‘Know Me’ for example; two tracks that are quite similar on the surface. Same sub-bass fuelled bassline and trap beat that acts as some kind of melody. The difference lies in the tempo of the hi-hats; the tempo on ‘Charades’ compliments itself to a more autotuned tone from Headie. Whereas the rapid-fire hi-hats on ‘Know Me’ give an aggression that can also be found on tracks like ‘18HUNNA’ and ‘Both’ (off Music x Road). The only slight criticism could be that for a mixtape clocking in at just over 22 minutes; it features two interludes and only three tracks over three minutes. However, when the interludes feature artists like FKA twigs and slowthai you can't really argue.

The stand-out tracks for me are ‘GANG’ and ‘Know Me’. A special mention has to go to ‘Judge Me (Interlude) (feat. FKA twigs)’ however. ‘Judge Me (Interlude)’ is very simple. This simplicity suits Headie and sounds like it could be an outtake from Kendrick Lamar’s ‘DAMN.’ which is never a bad comparison. ‘GANG’ was the fifth single off GANG and goes back to what Headie One is so good at – the classic drill sound. I am confident that ‘GANG’ will soon rise to be a fan favourite, as will ‘Know Me’. Like I mentioned before, the quick flow on ‘Know Me’ adds an undeniable aggression and one of the reasons Headie is celebrated. As for Fred Again..’s work, he is not a stranger to hip hop beats of any description, and this shows. An effortless quality oozes from every inch of the production side of this record so we can all agree that Fred Again.. came, saw, and conquered. When I first listened to GANG, I was expecting a run-of-the-mill UK drill and had no real preconception of what Headie One’s music would be like. I was initially impressed with tracks like ‘GANG’ and ‘Charades’ but learnt to appreciate the experimental side of this record. Through some well-placed featured artists, GANG explores different elements that could be brought into UK drill and explores them well. This is a record that is worth a few listens rather than writing it off for not sounding identical to Music x Road.