Rapper slowthai unveils Brexit billboards around London

The rapper is promoting his debut album with a slew of political billboards across the capital
slowthai
Juliana Piskorz4 April 2019

Rapper slowthai is promoting the release of his debut album, ‘Nothing Great about Britain,’ with an assortment of politically charged billboards around London.

The Northampton rapper, alerted fans to the billboards via an Instagram post yesterday where he listed their various locations and encouraged his Instagram followers to take pictures of them and send them to him.

slowthai, otherwise known as Ty Frampton, has amassed a cult following over the last two years, in part due to his thoughtful and often controversial social commentary.

Through his barbed raps he tackles weighty subjects like Brexit, male mental health and female equality, the song ‘Ladies’ includes the lyric: "This one’s for the ladies / ‘Cause they have our babies / And they drive us crazy / But they made us men”.

It should come as no surprise that the billboards for his upcoming album are similarly politicised, one on Westminster Bridge Road reads: "If you’re black you are 8 times more likely to be the subject of a stop and search than if you’re white," and another simply emblazoned with: "Boris Johnson is described by fans as humorous, intelligent, charismatic and clever."

slowthai

The new album's title track is an attempt to dismantle the stereotypes of British culture. “Tea, biscuits, the roads: everything we associate with being British isn’t British,” he cries. “What’s so great about Britain? The fact we were an empire based off of raping and pillaging and killing, and taking other people’s culture and making it our own?”

Although the rest of the album focuses more on his personal experience growing up in a Northampton council estate in a single parent family. The closing track ‘Northampton’s Child’ is a love letter to his mother who he crowns his “only Queen”, before conceding: “No way I can pay you back / I just hope I can make you proud.”

Nothing Great About Britain album cover 
slowthai

The 24-year-old has just completed his Brexit Bandit tour, closing with a gig at York Hall boxing ring in East London on Monday. He performed his hour-long set dressed as a boxing referee in a ring, which doubled as his stage for the riotous gig.

Nothing Great About Britain is out May 17 and features Skepta as a producer on the song ‘Inglorious’ and Jaykaee on ‘Grow up’. Slowthai has also collaborated with Mike Skinner on upcoming material.

You can pre-order the album here.

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