Stormzy - Heavy Is the Head

The Guardian 80

(#Merky/Atlantic UK)
He’s become so famous that even the Archbishop of Canterbury loves him – but this brilliant second album shows how difficult Stormzy finds stardom

“When Banksy put the vest on me,” says Stormzy, a matter of minutes in to his second album, “it felt like God was testing me.” It’s the second time he’s mentioned his headlining appearance at this year’s Glastonbury in as many tracks, but who can blame him? A risky but ultimately triumphant, even epochal performance, it served to underline Stormzy’s unique position among his UK rap peers.

Britain is currently teeming with fantastic MCs, but Stormzy is the only one your dad knows the name of. In the two years since the release of his debut album, Gang Signs & Prayer, he has become a boundary-crossing figure in British cultural life. Not only is he able to take a single as uncommercial as the dark, minimal Vossi Bop to No 1, but he has translated his commercial success into roles as a philanthropist, publisher and activist with enough clout to have his opinions raised by those interviewing the prime minister. He has attracted praise not just from the usual sources but from the vice-chancellor of Cambridge University and the Archbishop of Canterbury, who has said he prepares for officiating major events by listening to Stormzy’s 2017 single Blinded By Your Grace: neither are figures noted for their in-depth knowledge of freestyles, diss tracks and Lord of the Mics clashes.

The Guardian 80

This powerful follow-up to Gang Signs & Prayer is a grandstanding, soul-searching bid to crack the US – without losing that pugnacious south London voice

“How’s the best spitter in grime so commercial?” wonders Stormzy on Wiley Flow, a standout track off his second studio album, Heavy Is the Head. It is a pointed rhetorical flourish from a man who mostly wears the mantle of street poet-king like a tracksuit made of fine silk.

It was, arguably, only a matter of time before grime threw up its true crossover star. That the genre should have found one as analytical, mould-breaking and assured as Stormzy is a particular thrill. His second album continues seamlessly on from 2017’s landmark No 1 Gang Signs & Prayer. If anything, Heavy Is the Head grandstands harder, sings more sweetly and examines the rapper’s own conscience even more attentively than before.

Pitchfork 70

As he ascends from grime rapper to generational spokesperson, the charismatic UK star tries to figure out where to go next.