Nines: Crop Circle 2 album review - the rapper’s deadpan delivery makes for startling moments

The rapper is settling down after a stint in prison, but his ear for a strong tune suggests he could survive without the darkness
Ramsey Ramone
David Smyth27 April 2023

Harlesden rapper Courtney “Nines” Freckleton is one of those musical success stories that says fame won’t change him, but that isn’t necessarily a good thing. This fourth album connects closely to earlier work by sharing a title with his second, Crop Circle, from 2018. The lead single, the gangster-celebrating Tony Soprano 2, follows his song Tony Soprano from the previous release. “Still the same old me even though I’m rich/And it’s still gang gang, I’ll never switch,” he raps.

Other titles have alluded to the main theme of his music: a rap career that began over a decade ago but hasn’t completely extinguished the need to make money by other means. In 2015 a mixtape called One Foot In was followed by his debut album in 2017, One Foot Out – a grim hokey cokey that continued more recently. Crabs in a Bucket, the name referring to the difficulty of climbing out of the gang life, became his first number one in 2020. By October the following year he was in prison for importing 28kg of cannabis into the UK from Spain and Poland.

Now he’s been out just over a year, and ready to talk about it. Intro finds him cruising smoothly through his recent biography in his calm, sleepy voice, taking an optimistic view of his crime by claiming that, if he’d been caught the next time instead, it would have been 100kg. Elsewhere he shifts quickly from bragging to recognising that he needs to change, sometimes just a few lines apart: “Sold so much coke like I’m rivals with Pepsi,” he says on the single, followed quickly by: “I’m tryna leave the game but I need a lane.”

His deadpan, unshowy delivery makes his words entirely believable and all the more startling. “That ain’t a dimple on my face, it’s a stab wound,” he raps over icy synths and skittering beats on Line of Fire Pt.6. Elsewhere, smooth production that foregrounds melody brings him closer to pop than his lyrics ought to allow. Hear Me Out sits on twinkling keyboards and speeded-up gospel vocals. Favela slinks along on a tense Latin piano line.

On the closing track, Outro, he seems to come to a decision: “I’m tapped out,” he raps. “I ain’t chillin’ in the corners/I’m in the park pushing on the swing with my daughters.” That might make future content less exciting, but his ear for a strong tune suggests he could survive without the darkness.

Zino/Warner

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