Next, a grime Who’s Who…
[Video][Website]
[5.71]
Thomas Inskeep: Holy fuck, this is something. UK hip-hop newcomer Avelino is joined by grime stars Stormzy and Skepta — in North American terms of stardom that’s like getting Drake and Kanye to drop verses on your single — on this ode to bringing “no bad energy.” Raf Riley, behind the boards, builds each verse gradually, from each emcee rapping almost a cappella to an explosion of grimy (pun unintended) techno. This is pure excitement.
[10]
Micha Cavaseno: It sounds like brand-building. Negotiations. PR campaigns. Fashion magazines. Documentaries. Advertising sponsorships that mediate a balance of culture and product. We have all touched the road, because the Internet means we’ve all seen the footage of Meridian Walk without ever having to actually go and interact with the physical environments. Everything is connected through transmissions. Constant contact with the content. Retweeted, reblogged, shared and embedded, slowly eating away at your data. Who is Avelino? Doesn’t matter, he is distorted in a way to sound perfectly menacing, something that communicates a toughness and an “edginess” that so many of his listeners want to broadcast back upon themselves through the isolation of earbuds on the trains to gaze out at the ugly, awful physical world and remind themselves that in the private world, their godlike powers of observation and absorption will make them king on this scale. Always absorbing, always consuming.
[2]
Iain Mew: It’s weird for the biggest names of the last two years in grime to both show up on a track and sound so anonymous. It means that Avelino doesn’t sound out of place in their company, but only because they’re all outshone by the pumping rave of the hook.
[5]
Will Adams: That clustered bass riff is fantastic; I can see why all three involved figured they could take a back seat and let it do all the work.
[5]
Alfred Soto: The hook reminded me of Information Society, the rest of nothing at all — a stunning development considering how many powerful performances this pair has delivered in the last few years.
[3]
William John: Even with gradual fade-ins, the verse-breakdown cycle repeated twice over gives the impression of a cut-and-paste job. Yet with these three on the mic, the risk of banality was always low. Ringleader Avelino, the nation’s sweetheart Stormzy, and the son of another nation’s sweetheart, Skepta, keep pace with the piston-like kinetics, though I wish the hook was delivered more explosively.
[6]
Claire Biddles: There’s so much texture and drama in “Energy” that it feels much longer than its three minutes but in the best way — the techno hook fading out and crashing back in with the drop of the century makes me think of a twisty-turny journey through rooms of a club. Getting the two biggest grime stars on the same track is so audacious, but it’s not hollow showing off — there are three distinct personalities here, and they work perfectly together.
[9]