Dizzee Rascal’s third album is an inspired affair, building on the basic sonic template of his acclaimed first two albums, Boy In Da Corner and Showtime, and adding new layers of audio trickery. Make no mistake about it – this is one mean sounding record, skipping masterfully between urban genres like grime and hip-hop, in addition to electro, funk and even snippets of rock. The opening ‘World Outside’ is a superb mix of minimal, Neptunes-style beats and spacey electro effects, while the following ‘Pussyole (Old Skool)’ is a pulsating party tune built around a Lyn Collins sample (the song’s scintillating rhythms come as little surprise when you consider that the writer of the original track was one James Brown).
The album’s first single, the appropriately blaring ‘Sirens’, is a one-track wrecking machine that harks back to the apocalyptic soundscapes created by legendary hip-hop production team the Bomb Squad. Culminating in a relentless barrage of crunching guitar, booming beats and industrial squall that is near NIN-like in its heaviness, the track is one of Maths And English's standout moments. Dizzee also has a deft lyrical touch, whether examining serious subjects like police brutality and gang violence, or offering humorous advice to aspiring rappers. Naturally enough, there are also the obligatory outbursts of hip-hop braggadocio, with the rapper inviting his critics to suck his dick on, er, ‘Suk My Dik’.
Elsewhere, though, musical invention is the order of the day, with Dizzee sampling Arctic Monkeys on ‘Temptation’ and collaborating on ‘Wanna Be’ with Lily Allen, who sings reworked snippets of – bizarrely enough – ‘So You Want To Be A Boxer’ from the Bugsy Malone soundtrack. A bold and imaginative work, Maths And English shows that Dizzee Rascal – still only 21 – remains top of the hip-hop class.