Dizzee Rascal: Maths + English : Music Reviews : Rolling Stone

Album Reviews

Three albums into his career, London rapper Dizzee Rascal still sounds like a thug from a parallel universe: Maths and English is long on dark, dense electro beats and frazzled techno, plus frantic-but-ballsy rhymes that even Brits might have trouble parsing. It's nothing particularly new for Dizzee, but he sounds more assured than ever, and like this season of The Sopranos, Maths is a tense, uncomfortable prospect that gets under your skin something fierce. Grimy bangers like "Sirens" -- which sounds like the Bomb Squad messing with a four-track and PlayStation sound effects -- find Dizzee dropping rapid-fire syncopation with Ginsu-knife precision, and the give-and-take between Dizzee's hyperconfident Brit accent and Houston legends UGK's hyperconfident drawls on "Where's da G's" makes for one of the best, weirdest hip-hop collabos so far this year. "Sometimes I think this whole world's gone crazy!" Dizzee yelps on "Excuse Me Please." Even if that's all he had to say, Maths would sound pretty damn good.