"Sick of things going wrong and never going right," muses Jeshi on his debut. "Why are they never going right?"
So goes 'Universal Credit', a diary of London life narrated by Jesse Greenway, currently 27 years old. It’s easy to write off much of the album’s content as another hedonistic album – there’s bars aplenty alluding to partying, girls, all the usual sorts. What sets Jeshi’s tale apart from the crowd is his attempts to weave the bleak into the bright, and to force listeners to question what exactly he’s trying to escape.
The opening track immerses us into Jeshi’s world, and it’s hectic: rescheduling 'Universal Credit' calls, the gentle throb of a club, followed by overlapping shouts, broken bottles, and disturbingly intimate retching. Whether you like it or not, that is essentially the lyrical palette for most of this album. Throughout, Jeshi sustains a complex view of this world – it’s impossible to separate the addiction from the financial issues, the aggression from the grief.
Tracks such as ‘3210’ and ‘Protein’ are proof that Jeshi can write some excellent, catchy tunes when he wants. ‘3210’ merges slick, woozy synths with a chorus I’ve had stuck in my head since it came out. Jeshi’s desperation comes to the forefront, chasing the highs that will temporarily numb the violence and disillusionment around him (of course that fails, too). Meanwhile, ‘Protein’ sees featured guest Obongjayar sing in a bouncy, high-pitched delivery: "There’s no plan B, can’t do both."
‘Generation’ also uses some brilliant shifts in perspective to get its point across. It turns its gaze outwards to the people around Jeshi – his family, his local community, strangers – empathising with the lengths people go through to deal with the stress of living. As soon as Jeshi proclaims he doesn’t want to grow up, he’s watching ‘twelve white doves fly’. Murder and suicide are subsumed into irreparable trauma against chipmunk wails, and Jeshi can only watch.
Occasionally, Jeshi’s doesn’t keep up the same energy that he raps on other tracks with – this primarily occurs in the first half of the album. ‘Killing Me Slowly’ follows the same beats as ‘Sick’, with a dreary piano instrumental and a flow that never changes throughout the entire song. But luckily, the album ends on a high note with ‘National Lottery’, where Jeshi reflects on the good and the bad – Art Attack, mold that the council refuses to deal with – as he waits for a chance to break free.
'Universal Credit' shows great potential, but its drop in momentum in the first half marks it as a project that hasn’t quite lived up to its own standards. Regardless, choice tracks on 'Universal Credit' mark Jeshi as a musician willing to be different and to speak with conviction.
8/10
Words: Alex Rigotti
– – –
– – –
