(Atlantic)
The chart-topping MC tilts at the mainstream with mixed results
Girls, gangs, guns, Edmonton Green: Tion Wayne (Dennis to his mum) is the ladies’ hard man who boasts about boning as much as he does defending the block. Previously best known for making Afrobeats and hip-hop, alongside Russ Millions the 28-year-old went to number one in the UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand this summer with his lascivious drill track Body, the first of that hotly debated rap genre to do so. Then he jumped on a remix of labelmate Ed Sheeran’s current chart-topper, Bad Habits. Now Wayne’s new album attempts to marry all those styles with pop ambitions: “Try’na get my life straight from the jail … Try’na have the same cake as Adele,” as he puts it here.
Related: Rapper Tion Wayne: ‘Police don’t want us to win, they want us in jail’