Metro review: Giggs - Let Em Have It

My review of Giggs debut LP Let Em Ave It in today's Metro. I'm definitely copping the HMV version of the LP as it's got a bonus CD with his biggest anthem, Talkin The Hardest. You can buy it here.




Giggs: Let Em Ave It (THREE STARS)
XL

The notion of ‘British gangsta rap’ sounds, well, a bit weird. And this is the mountain that Peckham’s Giggs must conquer in his quest to convert huge underground following, into firstly mainstream acceptance and then success.

Debut LP, Let Em Ave It has all the right ingredients as Giggs triumphs against the odds: he survives drug dealing, prison, abandons the ‘greazy life’, and succeeds in rap despite the ‘Fedz’ (police)’s alleged campaign to shut Giggs down, and radio and TV’s reluctance to playlist his music.

Giggs’ struggle, voice and insights are unique (‘I’m talkin’ ‘bout crack in the stairways,’ as he puts it), and his s-u-p-e-r s-l-o m-o flow permeates woozy Southern-style production to peculiarly soporific effect. At 71minutes the LP loses direction but Giggs has taken a sizeable stride towards that summit.