Pa Salieu - 'Afrikan Alien' • DIY Magazine

What makes a truly worthy winner of the Mercury Prize? Do the jury plump purely for the album they feel is musically most worthy, or do they find themselves tempted to hand the Prize to the most enthralling story? From this year’s shortlist, both of those bases are covered by the same album - or, rather, mixtape. One of two such looser projects to be short-listed this year, Pa Salieu’s ‘Afrikan Alien’ sees him both make good on his considerable sonic promise and work through the emotional journey he went on when he found himself jailed on violent disorder charges in December 2022.

He was released from prison last September, having served two-thirds of a 33-month sentence, and emerged with eight books’ worth of lyrics under his arm; he quite literally headed directly to Angelic Studios in Oxfordshire to begin down the path to musical absolution. It’s hard to overstate the degree to which Salieu had the world at his feet in 2022, after a heady couple of years had seen him rise to prominence first by having 2020’s most-played song on Radio 1xtra with ‘Frontline’, and then by releasing an extraordinary debut mixtape, ‘Send Them to Coventry’, on which he positioned himself with remarkable maturity as a voice for the marginalised - as an urgent new presence on the British hip hop scene, one capable of speaking up for the disempowered.

A brisk, vibrant snapshot not of what could have been, but what is, and what still can be.

Rave reviews and a burgeoning side-line in the fashion world put plenty of credit in the bank for Salieu, but he will have been painfully aware, upon starting his sentence, how quickly this industry moves on when you are out of sight and out of mind. But if that was the mindset he went into prison with, it is clearly not the one he left with; ‘Afrikan Alien’ is a brisk, vibrant snapshot not of what could have been, but what is, and what still can be. Salieu’s only fixation with the past comes with the weight of the places that have made him, as he draws electrifying lines between the places he grew up, Gambia and Coventry, particularly on ‘Regular’ and ‘Dece (Heavy)’.

Salieu knew he had to walk a tight-rope with this release; feeling a duty to continue speaking for the voiceless on one hand, whilst keenly avoiding holding on to any sense of bitterness over what he’s been through these past few years. He walks that fine line with such elegance and grace, whether that’s wearing his outsider status with pride on the title track, or coining himself a new mantra on the standout ‘Y.G.F.’ - “young, great, and free.” On the basis of ‘Afrikan Alien’, it seems Salieu’s storytelling instincts and keen sense of Africa’s influence on modern pop were apparently only sharpened by the time he spent away - only now, he is refracting them through a new, freshly optimistic prism. His place on the 2025 Mercury Prize shortlist caps off a truly stunning redemption arc.

DIY has teamed up with LNER - the Official Travel Partner of the 2025 Mercury Prize Newcastle - to celebrate the power of journeys, both musical and literal. Read our full 2025 Mercury Prize Newcastle special edition below.

Tags: Features, Pa Salieu