Welcome to Ear 2 Da Sky! Each week, I will be going over topics within music culture and reviewing albums and EPs across genres, eras and artists that are submitted by readers like you, and listeners of my radio show, ear 2 da ground, every Wednesday at 11 p.m. on WHUS 91.7 FM! After being out of my cage, I’m back on campus and got the chance to listen Jawnino’s simply titled: “40.”
A relatively small artist, Jawnino is part of the underground rap scene in South London. “40” is his debut mixtape, sitting at 15 songs and clocking in at 41 minutes. Released May 3, 2024, it follows a slurry of singles and a four-track EP released in 2020. Jawnino’s flow and the production he raps over is very intriguing, with a mix of grime, jungle, electronic and chilled out alternative hip-hop beats, overlapped with a drawn-out slow style of delivery.
He opens the mixtape with “2trains,” a prolonged instrumental intro, until his drowned out, echoey vocals, call out: “I think I see you on the other side” and that he’s just “two trains away,” truly making you feel the distance. This distance could be a testament to how far ahead he is than the rest of us, as he claims that for anything good happening — from girls showing up, to birds flying — he’s the reason.
Jawnino moves into track two, “Dance2” — a groovier track, with more transparent and real lyrics to pair with it. This song is definitely a good reference point for Jawnino’s drawn-out style of delivery, but with this style comes a sort of stiffness. This stiffness is neither good nor bad, but noticeable. It comes across as a retroactive style of rapping as it turns into a spoken-word-esque delivery. This makes the raps feel like actual raps; poetry. He opens up emotionally a bit with, “I denied it / How could you? / But I get it now,” grappling with different stages of the grieving cycle.
He stays true to his national roots and lays down raps over a jungle beat on track four, “Lost My Brain.” He speaks on his drug usage, a reoccurring topic of discussion on this mixtape, “I can’t / take any more of these pills or I might just find what I left in vain / I just gave this tab the kiss of life / It won’t switch on me / It’s by my side just like Sade.” His stiff and stoic raps provide a sense of urgency and seriousness in his intentions within the themes of each track and the jungle beat on this track definitely adds another layer of urgency.
Jawnino finds himself on track five sharing a beat with a bigger name: MIKE, an American rapper who has ties to the rap scene in London as he grew up in Hackney. Jawnino compares himself to the rest of the field throughout his verse, “We couldn’t take the same steps
/ You wouldn’t leave the rain wet.” He seamlessly passes off the baton to MIKE as he interweaves his relationship with his late mother, death and the time, effort and what he pours into his work.
“40” is a really interesting piece of art. From the mixed bag of hypnotic production to the variety in Jawnino’s vocal delivery, it had culminated into something interesting and unique. With this being his first real concrete work in his rap career, I am on the edge of my seat, excited to hear more from the British rapper.
Rating: 3.5/5
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