Skandal: Hunger Pains

A new decade dawns, and UK hip-hop remains the Old Reliable of genres: commendably solid, bound by enough tradition and tendencies towards similarity that breakouts beyond its confines are rare. On the evidence of this mixtape, south Londoner Skandal possesses enough raw talent to move past his genre's stolid trudge: he ducks and weaves with scrappy energy on 72 Bars, demonstrates his narrative ability on Out Like a G, and on Suttin to Prove hits his stride and works himself into a frenzy over the rollercoaster beat of T.I.'s Hurt. On the flipside, he could do with some more cadences to his flow and fewer unremarkable beats that could have been found on any given UK hip-hop mixtape over the past decade. Most wearying is the unchangingly serious face Skandal wears for the duration of the mixtape, which he doesn't have the gravitas or focused vision to pull off just yet. Nonetheless, one to watch.