Second time round for Lethal Biz and music fans will pleased to know there is no Pow, Piddy Pow, PPP Pow or Pow Part 14 Riddim on the tracklisting. Surely a positive sign, and it’s a whole 1 minute 15 seconds before the first Pow is uttered! Shock Shock Horror Pow! Ok I’ll try and cut down on the Pow’s for the rest of the review, it’s already beginning to look like Lethal’s lyrics book. Now with all jokes aside, Lethal is very easy to criticise for the simplicity of some of tracks. But no-one can deny he does have the ‘hit making’ ability that he’s always raving about. And as expected the beats on Back To Bizznizz are energetic and if played in a pensioners home is likely to get them bouncing off the walls like a 5 year old after downing pints of Sunny Delight, Red Bull and Coke mixed into one sugary cocktail. Lethal sticks to what he is good at on tracks like ‘Mr’ and ‘Bizzle Bizzle’ with the bouncy beats and infectious chorus hooks. And when Lethal gets it right it is the ultimate turn up and blow out your speakers music.
Lethal’s repetition of choruses and similar sounding beats over the years have led to criticism, that is why it’s refreshing to hear him experimenting on Back To Bizznizz. These experiments take Bizzle into the ‘grindie’ territory, a phrase coined by Statik after he put out a mixtape earlier in the year consisting of Indie mixed with Grime. Lethal must have picked up on this because he employed Statik to produce ‘Boy’ which features rocker heavyweights, Babyshambles on the chorus. With Kate Nash singing on ‘Look What You Have Done’ and the big guitar sample on ‘Babylon’s Burning The Ghetto’ Lethal is clearly expanding his horizons and creating a larger fan base for grime. I’m not sure if the whole ‘Grindie’ term will take off, or if it is actually even any good. Parts of Statik’s mixtape worked and parts didn’t. ‘Look What You Have Done’ was the only track out of the three guitar based beats that I actually liked, it’s certainly still in the experimental stages, but has the potential to grow.
If anyone can remember back to Against All Odds, it had moments that were probably best left forgotten about. Where Lethal tried his best to be introspective and it just came across as him talking shit over a lame beat. This time round Lethal seems to have learnt from his mistakes. Well sort of, you see on ‘My Eyes’ he slows things down to try and express himself. Truthfully Lethal isn’t really a lyricist so he would be better just sticking to the hype tunes, but ‘My Eyes’ is an improvement on Against All Odds’ attempts. ‘Reflecting’ is more what I would like to hear from him if he is going to spit about his emotions. The sweet chorus and relaxed feel to the beat makes you, in Lethal’s words, “feel good”. Lethal also paints a vivid picture of his car stealing days on ‘Police On My Back’. The use of the sample sounds great and he rides the beat with ease. And obviously no outing of Bizzle’s would be right if there wasn’t that one big grimey tune. So Lethal brings in help in the form of Ghetto on ‘You’ll Get Wrapped’. Ghetto must be the most sought after emcee at the moment, he’s on fire and his verse on this track is proof.
Lethal puts in quite a performance on Back To Bizznizz and shows he is slightly more versatile as an emcee than on previous outings. Although he still doesn’t wow you with any of his lyrics, which could put some people off, he does make great hype music. With the indie market also being targeted on this album I can only see bigger and better things for the Bizzle. As long as he doesn’t get carried away and become out of his depth in a crossover between music scenes then I think Bizzle could prosper between now and his next album. Who knows we might even hear a few more rehashes of Pow between now and then!
Blacksterz
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