Tinchy Stryder – Star In The Hood Album Review

If grime was the football world, Tinchy Stryder would be like your Theo Walcott’s, early Michael Owens and Wayne Rooneys of today. He has had hype surrounding him from a very early age. You could be misled into thinking he is a lot older than he is, because as Tinchy’s debut album drops, he has just turned 20. This is the same emcee that has featured on Wiley’s debut album back in 2003, has put out numerous mixtapes with and without his crew, Ruff Sqwad, had the successful street single ‘Underground’ and apparently was on the scene from 12 years old. Here was me thinking child slavery had been abolished.

Luckily torn ligaments or pulled hamstrings don’t usually ruin an emcee’s career before it has begun, so Tinchy might just make the Grime FC starting eleven. To be honest I wasn’t sure how this album would turn out. The first two singles, ‘Breakaway’ and ‘Something About Your Smile’ were nice, but didn’t offer the same rawness as we were used to from the young Bow E3 native. So it was to my delight when Dirty Danger’s sick production kicked in on the first track with the album titled name. The beat sounds like someone has sprinkled griminess on Kanye West’s ‘Takeover’ instrumental. Tinchy comes on spitting like he is ready for war, thankfully no emcees get dissed. We don’t need no Jay-Z/Nas career ending songs at the moment thank you very much.

It has to be said Tinchy has been blessed with some great beats for this album. Da’Vinche, Dirty Danger, Rapid have managed to keep the sound grimey but still accessible to hip hop fans. Surprising to some but the best track on the album was produced by a girl, GoldieLocks. I’ve been saying it for ages that GoldieLocks is one of the hottest producers out there at the moment. Hopefully this track will give her the recognition she deserves. Her verse was razor sharp and can’t fail to make you smile,
“Now I’m a bit electro, and he’s more grime, So I guess you think I love fashion and he commits crime,”
Did I mention she is a bit of a looker also?

Tinchy shows his versatility on Star In The Hood spitting over 4x4 beats with a straight club type song ‘Dance 4 Now’ and then switching it up on ‘Workin’ For Days’ where he gets introspective and speaks on black slavery and how he isn’t “feeling the minimum wage”. It’s a shame ‘Not Like Me’ comes across like a weaker version of ‘Underground’ with a strange telephone noise constantly buzzing. And on ‘Catch ‘Em’ it needs to be listened to if only for the worse gun noise ever used on a song, check from 2:10 onwards.

Guest appearances have been kept to a minimum with Ruff Sqwad featuring on only one track and it works well that way. Tinchy has made a grime album that sounds like a grime album, something which still seems hard for most artists to pull off. So a big ‘brap brap’ should be issued to the Stryder for not only pulling off a great sounding album, but for also having the balls to go through with it. I can’t wait to hear him next time round, that’s as long as he doesn’t break his leg and get stretchered off the pitch.

Blacksterz