Album Review: BERWYN, WHO AM I

When BERWYN takes a big swing, he rarely misses. On his debut album Who Am I, the Trinidad-born, UK-based rapper knocks it out of the park. The 12-track collection is a resounding declaration of selfhood and resilience, bound together by a lush, stratified and predominantly self-produced soundscape.

In the tradition of the inflamed patron saints before him – Kendrick Lamar, for example – BERWYN keeps his lyrical flow broad and his anger specific. While he explores such themes as addiction, faith, race, and family, the elephant in the liner notes is the complex experience of being a Black immigrant in the UK and the never-ending search for belonging.

And yet, anger does not entirely underpin the album. There are glints of optimism and faith in the rapper’s internal liberation, in spite of the fact that the system works against him. This is especially present on the meditative, piano-laden declaration of love ‘Neighbours’ – featuring Fred Gibson aka Fred Again… – and towering closer ‘Mama’.

On album highlight, ‘I Am Black’, BERWYN solicits a higher power for answers to inequality: “Heavenly father, sorry to bother… Do you fight for one side and not the other?” It’s a fist-in-the-air anthem that tracks the oppression of Black people with a flurry of powerful rhetorical questions.

By turns tortured and uplifting, Who Am I bleeds red-hot truth.

8/10