Well then. British Hip-Hop mixtape of the year so far? Few have brought this much style, dripping swagu, in a very long time. That leaves us with a strong contender in the third official release from an outfit at the very forefront of our changing underground scene. The Gang have a greater sense of glazed bullseye in wanting to lay down the Piff universe and wavey sonic direction on Plantlife; opting for a streamlined thirteen tracks fashioned for maximum vibrations. Whilst their previous work had raised all the right eyebrows from i-D Mag to A$AP Rocky (recently admitting to being an avid listener), the Rap collective were still waking and baking. But this collection sees them firmly on their way to hot boxing themselves retarded.
The exceptionally refrigerated soundbed built by a number of cold hands is again feeding on the group’s ‘Pizzy’ ethos. Heavily indebted to 808 culture and 130-140bpm lifestyles, with a pinch of Grime binary and skewered G-Funk, underpinned with chilled digital Soul and only the faintest nods to sample work: the assemblage on Plantlife is both cohesive, textually aware and emblematic of a next wave Brit twist on the Cloud Rap adage.
Rhymes themselves from the seven front men Young Skout, Don Silk, Phaze One, Super Dertie, Prince Bam, Skits and J Rells are often riddle-like with that licked-off-one’s-face syllable tripping, but the marijuana infatuated topical range isn’t necessarily limited. It’s actually very focussed – on celebration, decadence and other universal, recreational themes that with up-to-the-second slang feel authentic in their agenda to spread some sort of mystical mischief.
Whilst the free download below has even been selected as 1Xtra’s mixtape of the week, right now, it’s really not hard to see why Pizzy’s cult following is becoming more apparent.