When we first met Jamie T, he was a 21-year-old street kid riding high on the runaway success of debut album Panic Prevention. But when Jamie T missed out on the 2007 Mercury Prize, we missed out on Jamie T – the maverick rapper was all but forgotten.
Luckily, on second offering Kings And Queens, we see Jamie Treays for what he really is: a thoroughly brilliant musician and devoted gutter poet (who really, really likes The Clash).
Veering seamlessly between menacing spoken word and tuneful warblings, Kings And Queens does well to retain the homey DIY feel of Treays’ debut (‘The Man’s Machine’ even samples Jamie T’s own live show). From the sampled snatch of Dylan’s ex-squeeze Joan Baez on ‘Earth, Wind & Fire’ to the wonderfully weird ‘Castro Dies’, Treays’ schizoid sound is sharper than sharp, always singable and honest as fuck.
On one track Jamie spits‘I was a ten-a-day, how d’you say? little shit/ White lightning hiding all my courage, quick wit’; on another he delivers from the streets, lying ‘bruised and bloody’ on the ground after being taken down by a gun-wielding ex-girlfriend.
With Kings And Queens, Jamie T proves he’s the real thing. The bloke they call the One Man Arctic Monkey has again come up with something superbly unfamiliar. Now if only those pesky Monkeys could do half as much.