Kano – London Town Album Review

London Town is the latest offering from the East London native Kane “Kano” Robinson. It’s now his second time round and he boasts a bigger and better line up with the likes of Vybz Kartel, Damon Albarn, Kate Nash, oh yeah and a guy called Craig David, all making appearances. Proclaiming on the album titled track,
“It sounds like grime but a little slower, I’m a lot wiser a little older.”
It’s a very true statement. Kano now has the experience of putting out his debut album and two successful mixtapes. But has he put what he has learnt into practice is the probing question. And the answer is partly yes and partly no.
What I notice firstly with London Town is that the production levels have been upped and it sounds a much more polished and rounded album. Totalling in at 53 minutes with 11 tracks and a hidden one, it seems Kano is purposely trying to avoid having any filler. This is all good as long as he delivers on every track, but that potentially is where the problems lie depending on the listener’s expectations.
On my first listen through I wasn’t overly impressed with London Town, it felt underwhelming. I desperately wanted a new ‘Reload It’ track with Kano spitting fire at a fast pace, possibly another anthem like ‘Typical Me’ and an emotionally charged rival to ‘Nite Nite’. These expectations weren’t met. But what we have to realise is Kano isn’t trying to churn out another carbon copy of ‘Home Sweet Home’ even if it was a great. He is progressing as an artist and trying to further himself musically and commercially. So even though Kano isn’t emceeing over the rawest grime beats on London Town, that doesn’t necessarily make for a bad album. And it’s to my great pleasure that London Town grows on me the more I listen to it.
‘Fightin’ the Nation’ is a definite stand out track, with Kano spitting some of his deepest bars over an acoustic guitar. And it’s whenever the drums kick in you realise just how good a song it is. It needs to be heard to be appreciated fully. Blur and Gorillaz front man Damon Albarn makes his presence felt with the production on ‘Feel Free’ and proves he can produce hip hop/grime just as well as he can when it comes to Britpop. Kano displays his great talent of capturing the listener’s attention on ‘Over And Over’ with his laid back flow. He breezes over the brooding beat and turns it into one of the album’s highlights.
Sadly I think ‘Bad Boy’ belongs on one of his mixtapes rather than London Town. The southern hip hop drums sound played out enough for American artists never mind UK emcees rapping over them. ‘Me & My Microphone’ sounds messy. Kano tries his best and his lyrics only just save it, because Kate Nash doesn’t fit as nicely as she should. And that is about the height of my complaints with London Town.
It is actually a very solid album and finishing it on the beautiful ‘This Is My Life’ followed by the hidden ‘Grime Emcee’ is a superb way to end. Don’t expect a testosterone filled grime album from Kano, but then he didn’t really do that first time round either on Home Sweet Home. If you approach London Town with an open mind and appreciate it for what it is musically rather than grime content then I think you’ll enjoy it. This is not to be slept on, and with its release being the same day as Kanye West & 50 Cent it might just get overlooked by people, but it undoubtedly stands alongside them if not above them. Now hurry along to your local record store kiddies!

Blacksterz