Tyrel

Brixton, south London · b. 2005 · FARA Records

Tyrel (b. 23 October 2005, Brixton, south London) is from a place with one of the deepest music and protest histories in the country, and one that has watched itself be rebranded and priced out in real time over the last fifteen years. Growing up there means growing up with the exact experience the record describes: a neighbourhood whose reality on the ground has nothing to do with how it's talked about from above, and where “change” has often meant the removal of the people it was supposedly for. He found his way in through the south London scene — rap, grime and the bass tradition — from young, coming up on the local circuit as an MC in the more classic sense: faster and more pointed than Travis.

A pointed, fast, direct MC — more overtly aggressive than Travis's worn-down delivery, sharper on the consonants, quicker on the beat. On the Extended Mix his verse is the one that names the mechanism most directly — who owns the paper, who owns the feed — and his delivery carries that harder edge. Raw and unpolished by design. His influences run south London rap and grime, and the political-MC tradition of naming names and mechanisms plainly; he's more of a classic bars-and-punchlines MC than Travis, and it shows in the density of his verse.

Harder and hotter than Travis, and less resigned — where the lead sounds tired, Tyrel sounds like he still wants to fight about it, which is partly the age gap. Direct to camera where Travis looks away. Controlled, though, not chaotic; the anger is aimed. At twenty he's the youngest of the three and brings the most heat. His verse on the Extended Mix is the one that names the mechanism most directly: who owns the paper, who owns the feed. Sharp, direct, young.