Riz Ahmed - The Long Goodbye

The Guardian 80

(Mongrel)

The Long Goodbye follows the standard tropes of a breakup album: voicemails from loved ones checking in, lyrics questioning what went wrong, karma coming for the toxic ex. Only the breakup here is between actor/rapper Riz Ahmed and his country: Britain becomes “Britney”, who laid with him and took his independence. It’s an evocative, albeit sometimes overwrought concept. Over humid beats from producer Redinho, Ahmed uses fast-paced rap and spoken word to interrogate colonialism. Toba Tek Singh jolts searingly; Fast Lava is all raw urgency; Deal With It pulses with confidence and wry bars (“they don’t like no ’fugees/ but they still killing us softly”). Plus, there’s a welcome feature from “R&Bollywood” prince Jay Sean on Any Day.

Since his work as Riz MC, Ahmed has always admirably considered third culture identity in his music (that grappling with the idea of “home” for the children of immigrants), but perhaps in addressing a wider audience and sociopolitical issues that feel more pressing than ever, The Long Goodbye can feel heavy-handed: even those phoned-in messages from famous friends (Mindy Kaling, Asim Chaudhry) sound jarring. Ultimately, though, Ahmed delivers, offering up some clever writing on this powerful concept album.

Pitchfork 74

While walking a tightrope across a daring concept album, rapper Riz Ahmed offers compelling, unapologetic account of what it truly feels like to be brown and British in 2020.

The Guardian 0

(Mongrel)
The Four Lions and Star Wars actor has made a harsh, funny, vehement rap record about falling out of love with a country you no longer recognise

Things are rarely easy for the actor who choses to dabble in pop. For every Donald Glover, apparently able to flit at will between the film set and the recording studio, pausing only to bask in the superlatives that garland both sides of his work, there are umpteen Russell Crowes or Johnny Depps, their dreams of polymath stardom crushed by a reception that ranges from suspicion to bemusement to outright hostility. Those that try and fail usually put the negativity down to the public’s desire to pigeonhole, to unfairly demand that one stays in one’s lane, but really the problem is a distrust of dilettantism.

That isn’t an accusation that anyone is likely to throw at Riz Ahmed, the Emmy-winning, Wembley-born actor who’s enjoyed a parallel career as a rapper under the name Riz MC and as one half of the duo Swet Shop Boys. Whatever you make of his second album, The Long Goodbye – a conceptual work based around the idea that British Asians are locked in an abusive relationship with the UK and that the rising tide of racism spawned by Brexit might represent the moment at which they’ve finally been dumped – really doesn’t seem much like something you’d knock together to kill time between roles. It comes complete with tracks that reference the work of poet and philosopher Muhammad Iqbal and writer Saadat Hasan Manto and an accompanying, disturbing short film (it’s hard to explain exactly why it’s disturbing without incurring no-spoilers wrath).

Related: Mogul Mowgli review – Riz Ahmed tackles British selfhood head on