With the likes of Stormzy and Skepta becoming successful, Grime has well and truly crash landed into the mainstream this year. And not before time, a strain of British hip-hop that melds urgent delivery, telling tales of street life over skittering beats and samples. It’s perhaps the most organic youth music sound to emerge in the last few years. Now the tentacles of its influences have reached South-Wales, Cardiff collective Astroid Boys whose work has been reflecting the multi-culture of Cardiff’s C10 postcode reflecting a life of nights out, gangs, nbsp; discrimination and personal empowerment through struggle.
Joined by fellow Cardiffian Sonny Double 1, Foreigners takes a downtempo beat, that sounds like car alarms going off and allows each member to scatter brutally honest bars that hold up a mirror to themes like gun crime, police corruption, the Muslim Ban and Brexit. “We know that you don’t like the foreigners,” goes the cutting refrain as the crew lay out lyrics rife with pointed social commentary, and prescient wit “My hair is on Donald Trump/My swag is on Donald Duck,” and surprising crescendos that have as much in common with hardcore punk as they have urban music. It’s accompanied by a similarly stark video, street corners, dimly lit back streets and police raids, it’s a snapshot of life on the margins.
