There's only one President
One of the best videos on YouTube is the BBC 1Xtra live radio set in promotion of Skepta and JME’s “That’s Not Me” Remix from 2014. It feels like it came out a century ago, long before Skepta won the Mercury Prize, became a household name and started dating Adele. It’s an uncommonly star-studded lineup of UK grime legends and I’ve watched it countless times. There are so many great things about this video: the joy, kinship and respect they all have for each other, all the grime standards they rap over, how they’re all dressed in athletic gear like they’re about to do high intensity interval training, everything about D Double E, the fact that a radio station would allow a bunch of rappers to perform live over the air (why don’t we have this in Canada?), the short guy with the white glasses (Subzee) ruining the vibe by lustily swearing over the air after everyone else has been carefully censoring themselves.
But for me, it was President T who stole the show. Understated and unassuming in a heather grey Superdry sweater and blue jeans, President T steps up to the mic at the 4:49 mark. Over the nasty, squelching beat from Dizzee Rascal’s “Respect Me,” he unfurls a torrent of off-kilter rhymes that have permanently reconfigured the way that I think about rapping. I’ve probably watched it over a hundred times:
I’ve since seen him do these bars a few times on several different video outlets, as is typical with grime “freestyles.” But this performance carries a different energy. You can hear the excitement from the other emcees in the room whenever he gets on the mic. Who was this guy? His flow seemed counterintuitive, herky-jerky and full of pauses. It was an anti-flow. I’d never heard anything like it. Punctuating his lines with internal conversations (“I said…” “I was like…”), his rhyme schemes were unpredictable with a strange way of deciding which words to emphasize. There was a sense of delayed gratification to his delivery. He was like a comedian setting up punchlines.
He corrects himself mid-verse:
“They were like, somebody slow down Prezzy
I was like, nobody can, sorry, nobody could”
Then he corrects someone else in a way that reps the UK to the fullest:
“Then I went KFC
What did I order, wing and a fries
Somebody tell these guys
I said, what did I order? Breast and a chips”
And ends his verse with prototypical Prez T wordplay:
“And they got nines?
Funny how I can’t see clips
When I got mines, they were like flies
I said… wow
But I weren’t doing up zips”
His style was surprising but controlled and measured in a manner that left me hanging on every word. I soon realized that I knew him from a song called “Dis Likkle Yute” that I’d heard on a Bless Beats compilation called Hard Day’s Graft back in 2008. It’s also on his mixtape Back Inna My Face which features one of his signature tunes, “Kill Off Killy Part 2.” These earlier recordings didn’t really do his style justice though. President T has been around for awhile but was derailed after going to prison on drug charges for a few years. He was a founding member of North London’s Meridian Crew, a Tottenham-based rap collective featuring Skepta, JME, Big H and Bossman Birdie that eventually splintered off into two other groups: Bloodline and Boy Better Know.
After the BBC live set, I became a dedicated Prez T stan which luckily coincided with a marked increase in his productivity. He released Greatest to Ever Touch Down in 2015 and followed it up with the remarkable T On The Wing in 2016. The title referencing his bid in prison, it’s a high energy combination of both contemporary and classic grime sounds. The album is solid from front to back, finding T revelling in skillful lyrical misdirection over heavy, subterranean production. Prez T regularly comes up with some of the most memorable tough talk ever committed to tape: “I know skengman so far up north, don’t be surprised if you see them wearing a kilt!” Shout out to Scotland. The best song on that record and possibly in all of his discography is “Ending Careers.”
Rapping over Danny Weed’s timeless “Salt Beef” instrumental, Prez T attacks the constantly-shifting beat’s serpentine synth waves, fake flutes and camera sound effects to declare his supremacy over all challengers. The song is a perfect harmony between vocal and backing track where the energy of his live radio performances is finally accurately captured on record. I couldn’t imagine anyone else approaching this track in this way. His eccentricities are a bit more subtle here but it’s hard to think of anyone else who would say something like “Burying MCs from day to day… and engineers.”
President T breathes new life into typical rap tropes. Despite being a genuine certified roadman, there’s a refreshing English politeness to many of his boasts: “Back in Meridian, I was a goon / But when I saw olders, I was like ‘Good afternoon’.” His long-awaited album Stranger Returns came out in 2018 and he followed that up with a couple albums that lean towards a UK drill direction that have shown him taking a more conventional lyrical approach. But the fact that someone with such a unique style can make waves anywhere is still encouraging in and of itself. There’s only one President! His ingenuity continues to inspire me.
Listen to this President T playlist I made if you get tired of refreshing maps this weekend.
Five Things I Like
Dizzee Rascal’s Fire in the Booth! I love the style Dizzee has been kicking the last few years. Rapping fast and fitting in as many rhymes using the same word sound as possible but still tossing in some subtle wordplay and doing it with great technique and clarity. The fans see it too, there’s so much more of an appreciation for craft from UK rap / grime / drill fans, they peep game a bit more than we do over here.
“The (Mostly) True Story of Vanilla Ice, Hip-Hop, and the American Dream” by Jeff Weiss for The Ringer. Only Jeff could make me feel empathy for Rob Van Winkle.
This Sky High Farms x Dover Street Market x Total Luxury Spa shirt goes hard and 100% of the proceeds go towards addressing food insecurity in underserved communities.
Today is Bandcamp Friday where they waive the fees they charge artists for 24 hours. Here’s a playlist I made for today with albums and tracks to buy, courtesy of Buy Music Club.
Dave Chappelle on My Next Guest Needs No Introduction with David Letterman was one of the best conversations I’ve ever seen about the burden of creativity. I’ve found myself watching a lot of standup lately (Chappelle, Chris Rock, Richard Pryor) because I’ve been writing lyrics with more humour recently, using it as a tool for getting my message across. Truth in jest is a very real thing and it can be powerful. Listening to Chappelle deconstruct human nature in real time with such wisdom is staggering but he also explains that there is often a personal cost for being a conduit for ideas.
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