United Kingdom rapper Tyron Frampton, known by his stage name “slowthai” has been on some rap fans’ radar over the past couple years. After generally positive reviews from his debut album “Nothing Great About Britain,” it was only a matter of time before he dropped a colossal album that was near perfect from front to back. In the first leg of 2021, he released his new album “TYRON.” It consists of two discs, each with seven songs each clocking in at 35 minutes of runtime

The album opens up with “45 SMOKE.” It’s a pretty intense track to open up an album. It sets the tone for Side A of the album, with the grimy UK vibe that he’s known for. It’s a pretty short intro that transitions into one of the hit songs on the album “CANCELLED” (feat. Skepta). It’s one of the hit songs for a reason, with a great hook from UK legend Skepta and a hard verse from thai. It talks about the current climate of social media, with Skepta proclaiming “How you gonna cancel me?” It’s a hit song for a reason.

This takes us into the hit single that dropped prior to the album, “MAZZA” (feat. A$AP Rocky). It’s another great track with an incredible feature from one of the most prominent rappers in the game today. Thai and Rocky trade bars back and forth on a faster paced beat containing a soft sample in the background. It’s another song where it’s easy to tell why it’s a popular song. The next track is “VEX.” It’s backed by another hard beat, and Thai continues the same theme for Side A, seemingly taking the route of hard, grimy beats on short tracks. It’s a solid song and over halfway through Side A, the album is almost perfect so far. 

“WOT.” Is the shortest track on the album, clocking in at 48 seconds. It’s the same beat formula, with a very short verse from thai. The transitions from VEX into WOT and then into “DEAD” are super clean. It’s a slower beat on this one, but still with a dark sample in the back while Thai keeps the louder rapping style into the mic. He keeps a solid hook on this track, talking about how money is worthless with no time. He switches his flows a few times, keeping the track solid and interesting. “PLAY WITH FIRE” is the outro to Side A, and it does a great job of taking an outro route. It uses a slower beat with clean samples over it, giving the track a more somber feeling, almost as if it’s preparing the listener for Side B of the album. Thai didn’t miss throughout the entire first half of the album.

Side B opens up with “i tried.” It takes a completely opposite beat approach, going with a more Kanye West style drum beat backed with a great tweaked sample. It’s a more traditional rapping approach that thai takes, and he still doesn’t miss a beat by switching up the style. It’s a perfect intro into Side B of the album. It leads into “focus.” It’s a self reflection song, with some incredibly deep bars on it. It’s one of the deepest tracks on the album, but not as deep as the following track.

“terms” with Dominic Fike and Denzel Curry is one of the best songs on the album. With a minimalist beat in the background, both thai and Curry release incredible verses on the song. The hook from Fike just pulls the entire song together. It’s for sure a highlight on an album that is filled with highlights. It’s followed by “push” with UK pop singer Deb Never. Never brings another great chorus to the album while thai releases emotional bars over the guitar-backed beat. It’s another deep track filled with emotions behind it. 

“nhs” is the fifth song on Side B. It has a unique hook, with thai toning up his voice a lot, creating an almost distorted vocal range that somehow creates a catchy set of lyrics. It’s more deep bars from him, talking about loyalty, love and hope. The instrument behind the beat changes for this one as well, going from guitar to piano. The following song “feel away” has a superstar feature from James Blake as well as producer Mount Kimbie. Blake provides a next level performance, singing the way he is known for, and it’s almost as if Side B’s emotional tone and deeper meaning peaks at the point of his singing.

This takes us to the final song, the outro to Side B titled “adhd.” It’s a typical outro, with thai almost wrapping up every theme of the album. It closes with a phone call from thai, calling one of his best friends to let him know he misses him. Just when it almost ends, the beat drops once again while thai drops some loud bars, almost screaming for the final twenty seconds. It was another perfect track from him.

This was truly an incredible album, and is already an early contender for album of the year this year. slowthai absolutely outshined my expectations and the album is a 9.5/10, almost perfect. The only track that wasn’t up to par was “VEX,” although it’s still an alright song. Although TYRON probably won’t get enough recognition, it was truly a creative album.