Ghetts

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Essential Albums

  • On Purpose, With Purpose
    On Purpose, With Purpose
    On Purpose, With Purpose

    “To anyone who feels like they’re being overlooked, don’t have conversations with people about ‘It should be you’. No, it shouldn’t,” Ghetts tells Apple Music’s Dotty. “Don’t download the virus. Saying to me, ‘It should be you’ is a virus because if you take that upon yourself, you’re going to put out this energy of [being] underrated—now you become that. Your time comes when it’s meant to. Everyone has a time, and the truth is this: We’re only individuals, so the culture will always remain bigger than us.” After two decades of grime-scene grind, 2021’s lauded Conflict of Interest proved a landmark moment for the prolific MC, once labelled “Ghetto” as a product of his inner-city environment. The album’s subtle arrangement met with sharp, analytical insights that surfaced a greater sense of self. On Purpose, With Purpose, Ghetts pushes further across the ground he explored on his major label debut, reflecting the climb from impoverished youth to esteemed elder statesman in detail. “I wanted to keep the story going,” he explains. “Creating an album is simply adding another chapter to my book, and I wouldn’t want you reading the same [part] twice.” It was while touring Conflict of Interest that Ghetts put the foundation in place for album four. He gutted out a derelict complex and built separate recording rooms, each housing different producers, with Ghetts moving from one to another in a door-to-door writing-camp experience. This all-encompassing approach is felt throughout. On the Sampha-assisted “Double Standards”, he takes aim at the contradictions of global conflict—and the taxman. For synth-knocker “Laps”, Ghetts pairs again with South Africa’s Moonchild Sanelly, renewing the electric chemistry of Conflict of Interest standout “Mozambique”. The album’s eye-catching MC additions also deliver fireworks at steady intervals. “Mount Rushmore” sets out a sizzling, three-way rally with Kano and Wretch 32 (his old crew teammates from N.A.S.T.Y. and The Movement respectively). Unbelievably the first time the trio has shared a track, it employs choir harmonies and the timeless words of Dr Martin Luther King Jr as the three enshrine their status as UK greats in stone-cold rhyme. On Purpose, With Purpose serves up a dedication to Ghetts’ perseverance and longevity, swinging through genres—and generations—from track to track. “We are pieces of a huge puzzle,” he says. “Sometimes, we’re not given enough credit for what we’ve been inspired by—or who we’ve gone on to inspire. Those very important conversations are just not had. But that attitude only comes from people who don’t really understand: The whole time I’ve been blessed, the whole time.”

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About Ghetts

Since his breakthrough in 2005—when he appeared on Kano’s “Typical Me” and dropped his debut, 2000 & Life—the grime MC Ghetts has threaded his genre’s trademark frenetic energy through songs about the increasingly fraught world around him. His career has been a story of persistence. Born Justin Clarke in East London, Ghetts landed in jail while he was still a teenager; after his release, he received fewer commercial looks than some of his contemporaries, despite a string of mixtapes that helped codify grime’s sound. But he continued to evolve, shifting his once pyrotechnic voice into something nimbler. By the time he received major-label backing for 2021’s contemplative Conflict of Interest, he was shading in the character he sketched on seminal grime records like Ghetto Gospel and Freedom of Speech. Any newfound restraint should not be taken as complacency: Conflict of Interest is filled with scenes of street-level peril. “When's the last time man had to hide in bush and silent a ringtone?” he asks on the taunting “Fire and Brimstone”.

HOMETOWN
Plaistow, London, England
BORN
9 October 1984
GENRE
Hip-Hop/Rap

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