Jehst – Heathens EP

While UK hip-hop has long bowed down to his majesty, Jehst is now addressing ‘Heathens’ directly, 4 tracks of venerable penmanship and riposte that includes two recent drops that have kept fans in thrall of his ceaseless reserves of unequivocal syllables.  

"Still rock the Nuke Proof / I keep on rockin' in the free world / Doot-doola-doot-doo...” A chugging, deconstructed funk mosaic from Bastien Keb hangs ‘Heathens’ on the razor blade-sharp shrug of the shoulders. Riding the carousel revolutions as he endorses a “tailor-made rhyme style, wake-and-bake lifestyle”, Jehst ducks and weaves between the gaps of the track until he’s on the verge of making it a religious experience.

Jaisu’s frothy jazz vapours for April’s ‘420 Every Day’ nudge along playful rhymes with mic remaining on red alert, before Pitch 92 teases a 10 below red rag on the lectern-trashing ‘State of the Union (Freestyle)’. Subsequently a vein starts to pop on ‘Body Bag’, a dislocated, zero gravity freeze ray fired by Jetsun. As adept at making sure he’s “getting paid in full: Eric B & Rakim” as he is at taking orders for toe tags, Billy Brimstone’s psychedelic phlegm comes Michelin-starred: “You’re duck soup, I’m the pot- boiler / You’re ‘bout to see the end sooner than you want, like a plot spoiler”.