Album Review Lethal Bizzle - Back To Bizznizz

A fair few years back – the deep dark depths of 2004 in fact – there was an underground Grime track called ‘Pow! (Forward)’. It was by a young chap calledLethal Bizzle. Banned in clubs for its incendiary ways and lauded by the masses for being well, good for a scrum, it opened a door called stardom.

And Bizzle’s stepped up to that door good and proper. With its sparkily delivered rhyme and stupidly fun self-referencing ‘Back to Bizznizz’ should be a contender for pop album of the year. Lethal Bizzle would feel just at home nestled next to Kate Nash in the charts or Babyshambles in the gutter.

And what do you know. He bloody well is. Kate ‘Pop Chorus’ Nash guests on ‘Look What You Done’ and Babyshambles have a less successful go at crafting a bit of rap with their rambling. It’s balancing out the bash along of previous single ‘Bizzle Bizzle’ and complementing the anti-cool of ‘Selfridges Girl Not On Myspace’. It’s just refreshing to see some hip-hop have a good old giggle.

Not that it’s all laughs. Rather that completely cast off the passion that got ‘Pow!’ a good telling off, Bizzle re-moulds it. This time he’s taken the grime club to the politicians. ‘Babylon’s Burning’ pleads the case for those bits of cities we all might like to ignore, while the remainder of the full length hints and nudges at the problems of urban life.

A strong fusion of playful grimey pop and politics, Lethal’s Bizznizz is looking pretty good. Just banish any thoughts of Gordon Brown getting grimey. We bet it’s not a pretty sight.