J Hus - Big Conspiracy

Pitchfork 80

The London rapper’s second album is smoother, preciser, and more measured. We see J Hus as a lost son of Gambia, an adult-in-progress, a talented pop polymath, and just a guy who has a lot of sex.

The Guardian 80

(Black Butter)

J Hus’s 2016 outing Common Sense was pivotal in evolving contemporary British urban music, bringing African R&B influences into London’s admixture of grime and dancehall. After a second stint in prison (for carrying a knife), Hus re-emerges a more thoughtful figure on his second album. He’s still hiding from “the feds” on Helicopter, still “reckless, reckless”. But the way in which he switches fluidly between loverman sing-song and staccato rap glorifies his former lifestyle a little less and ponders the wider picture a little more.

“How you gonna run the world? You can’t even run your life?” Hus muses on Fight for Your Right; it’s unclear whether he’s sneering at rivals or berating himself. “I’m on the roadside, but I’m playing chess,” he offers on No Denying. Tunes like Cucumber (“I gave her the coo-cumba!”), by contrast, are slick with body fluids.