black.british.music

When I relaunched this blog, I told myself that it wasn’t going to be a music blog. But I guess that was before I found music that I wanted to blog about LMFAO. 

So - LET’S TALK ABOUT JIM MTHERFXKNG LEGXACY. 

Bare annoying thing 1: I can never work out where the ‘x’ in his name goes, I keep wanting to replace the ‘e’ in ‘Legxacy’ with the ‘x’, but it’s actually just a random ‘x’ after the ‘g’, and I get it because ‘Google’, init, but lowwww me bro, I’m old. 

Bare annoying thing 2: is actually Track 1, ‘context’. My guy, I’m not listening to alla dat. I FEEL YOU MY GUY, YEAH?! Don’t even let dem man twang you into thinking you having to explain yourself, you don’t need to explain yourself my guy, WE GET IT, TRUSS ME. YOU DID YOUR JOB TRACK 2-8. We didn’t need to hear alla that. But that’s your art and it was quite nice to hear your voice just speaking so let me STFU. 

 

Track 2, ‘stick’, is just beautiful isn’t it. ‘Ever since the rain came crashing down, on the water, cause my boat, can’t take on more water, so I’m gonna sink?’ come on man. It’s just poetry. The rain is inevitably going to come down, and me I’m just on my boat, dancing around, tryna keep positive, tryna stay afloat, doing what I can to survive. The boat is already taking on a load, it can’t take anymore but now you wanna rain? Yeeee man, I’m just gonna sink *shrugs shoulders*, YOU GET ME? I get you bro. 

In ‘Fireworks’, when Katy Perry said, ‘Do you ever feel, like a plastic bag, drifting through the wind, wanting to start again’, it was like YES BABE, I DO EVER FEEL THIS. And I felt like it brought me back to that when I first heard it, but the next lyrics being references to Katy B and Charli XCX, tying it into the ‘Black British Experience’ just as the automated voice reminds me it’s a “Black British Experience” was genuinely a sensory overload for me. Like I wanna crash this whip, but I’m driving with my one son so namaste, composure. 

I promise you, everything he’s talking about in the tune - is not what I took from the tune. I can’t relate to sticks and stacks and selling drugs, but the rain, the water, the black british experience, katy on a mission and the mtherfxng Brats? Yeah I hear all of that and I’m in a different space, I’m reminiscing. 

Track 3 ‘new david bowie’. Causes Elijah to ask me what ‘DND’ is, and as I’m explaining I’m getting irritated by the hard ‘ER’s’ in the tune, and I’m thinking ‘ahhhh do I have to turn this off with Lij in the car’ cause he is N bombing all over the gaff, and honestly I really wish we would just stop it. It’s not giving what we think it is, we’re not rEcLaImiNg the word LOOOOOL. As a ‘community’, let it go mannnnn. I beg. The track is only 2 minutes long though so it was over before I decided whether or not to turn it off. 

Track 4 ‘sun’ comes on, it’s nice, it does what it needs to do. There’s a lil J Hus reference in there which is nice. Lots of N Bombs and drugs going on, and I’m starting to think I know where this is going as a tape on a whole. 

BUT I AM WRONGGGGGGG 

’06 wayne rooney’. GIVE ME WHEETUS - TEENAGE DIRTBAG. GIVE IT TO ME, INJECT IT INTO MY VEINS. It’s like soft porn. He’s really tried to soft launch me into the indie rock, and I RESPECCCCC IT. But also, it’s giving ‘I also listen to Ed Sheeran’. Which, listen I’m not mad at, give the man a mic, a guitar, a loop pedal and an audience and let him go and rock out in a stadium too please cause I’m so wid it Jim, I’m gonna be rocking out wid you too I promise. And just as I’m getting lost in the Ed Sheeraness of it all, the automated voice does it’s ‘Black British Music’ thing again and I snap back cause hell yea this is Black British Music. It’s not linear, we waze through so many different roads and come up against such a vast variety of cross roads that define our sounds and it should be okay for it to be both Wheetus (American, but the moment you discovered it but wasn’t sure if you liked indie rock or just that song and if-you-should-tell-your-friends) and Ed Sheeran (and the moment you discovered him but wasn’t sure if you liked him, or his song, and if-you-should-tell-your-friends). NOT LINEAR. AND I LOVE IT. 

‘issues of trust’ again, Ed Sheeraness. If you told me Ed wrote and produced it I wouldn’t NOT believe you. It doesn’t matter because NOT LINEAR, and it doesn’t matter who did it first it matters who did it better so get on that stadium stage my G and learn how to loop that pedal, trussmi. But the end of the track goes to church and it brings in a new element of the Black British Experience that he hadn’t introduced until now, and which did shock me a little bit actually cause we’re talking drugs and sinking boats till this point ion wanna think about church plsmakeitstop but also givememorewhereisthistrackgoing, but it doesn’t go anywhere, it ends at 2 minutes because someone somewhere (maybe radio so I might need to STFU here) is telling people not to make 3 minute 30 songs anymore and I’m (old) BIG MAD ABOUT IT. But I want to hear more, as in Jim if we gave you 5 minutes and said just let that one off, where would you and the choir take it? Cause we’re here for ‘Issues of Trust Part 2’ yknow… 

At this point, Lij has been silent since ‘New David Bowie’ but he chimes in here to say ‘Mum, do you think I could still be a rapper?’ and I’m like ‘awwww, course son’. He doesn’t know that the absolute last thing I’m gonna let him be is a rapper but it is SO CUTE that he’s listening to Jim Lxgxaxcxy and it’s making him wanna rap. Lij exclusively listens to Baile Funk, Blanco, Knucks and LeoStayTrill (in that order) and I’m happy about this moment cause I know he’s gonna add Jim to that list now, and I’m also at that point wondering who the label are, and if there is a label, and if there isn’t - how I’m getting get a radio edited version of this tape that Lij can listen too… but I digress. 

‘father’ is on, and Lij is like ‘this doesn’t make sense, how can he love his father if he never had a father’. My guy, your dad has been in Bali for 3 months, you love him, but you ain’t seen him, it’s legit like you don’t have a father right now, except you do, do you get it??? (He gets it). I’m also bussin up cause I love when Lij has a *hits blunt* moment and he’s staring out the window like he’s just had a maddddd epiphany. 

‘d.b.a.b’ comes on, and I want to turn it off cause of the ‘Don’t Be A Bitch’ profanity things but sorry, Don’t Be A Bitch init. And if you do wanna be a bitch - it’s okay (thank you Jim because sometimes yes, yknow). Tunes too wavy, Lij is just gonna have to mind his business on that one there. The Kojo Funds reference is sending me also cause earlier there was a Hus reference and yes the Black British Experience was loving both of them and refusing to pick a side because you’re JUST A FAN and NOT INVOLVED and then realising omgivegottopickasideevenasafan. Banter man. 

‘big time forward’ is jarring because why didn’t he put the ‘x’ after the ‘w’ in ‘Forward’ and call it ‘Big Time Forwxard’ annoying man, I can’t get past that. One of the best tunes on there though, i’ll smash my phone then and there if that comes on in a dance. 

‘sos’, Gorgeous. Definitely sending that SOS, definitely missing you, definitely in distress, definitely not content, definitely want you to make the attempt to get me off the fence, alla that. 2025 love song fi dem, serenade me #yesbaby. 

‘i just banged a snus in canada water’, the automated voices at the beginning are just great, really reminds me of something that I can’t describe (it’s 1am I been writing this for time so low me init, maybe i’ll update this post when I can put me finger on it). Anyway he’s talking about Blue Borough in this track and now I realise that this whole feeling I been feeling in terms of relating to these tunes is because he’s from the ends, Lewisham to di wurlllllll, we’ve lived that same experience. (I have no idea how old he is but since I turned 25 I have been 25 and haven’t been able to mentally grow up with each year that passed so I imagine he’s my age mate and that’s why iRelate). Although I have no idea what a ‘snus’ is so I am definitely actually 34 #confirmed. 

‘3x’ with Dave. I first heard this last week when I was driving and DJ Target made it his Radioactive Record. It is such a good collaboration, I love it when the featured artist stays on brand, aligned with the concept, really cares about the record and you can tell. I’m not sure if Dave heard the rest of the project beforehand but when he come with the Sneakbo reference I was convinceddddd he’d heard the rest of it and was tying in the south london references from snus and bringing it full circle into 3x. 

I could be giving everyone too much credit to be fair, but with the grime samples and aforementioned stuffs like I just feel like this was all very carefully considered and curated. 

Anyway this is dragging you don’t need to hear what I think and feel about every track, just know though that I found this a very pleasurable listen. It does perfectly execute the Millennials, Gen Z and Gen Alpha ‘Black British Experience’ in its own ways. Whether it be the intentional use of lower case titles, the graphic artwork, the other artists referenced and featured, the samples or simply just the music, its a sonic story book that I don’t feel has been accurately told in this way until now. Many have tried, and definitely been close (shout out Stormzy), but this one has hit the nail on the head for me, and I look forward to this becoming the norm when we talk about what it means to be black and british in 2025. 

It’s hard ER’s, it’s indie, it’s rock, it’s rap, it’s grime, it’s south london, it’s hus v kojo, it’s love and loss, it’s bromance collabs, it’s DND and it’s whatever banging snus in canada water means. 

It’s very beautiful. 

Thank you Jim Legxacy.