aaamusic | On 06, Nov 2011

If anyone watched T4 last Saturday morning you would have seen a special all about SB:TV the underground urban music production house of which one of their collaborators is Random Impulse (real name Jovel Walker) the punk guitar playing rapper who’s managed to notch up some fairly impressive credits. Besides being mates with Ed Sheeran he’s written and produced for Lupe Fiasco, signed Chipmunk to his own label Reignasance, engineered for Wiley and Tinie Tempah.

All of which is very impressive for someone who is still only 22.

So it makes you wonder where it all went wrong with his new EP No Sleep for Winners. The premise of the opening track is about going out with no cash and paying for everything on your card and worry about it in the morning when you can’t pay your rent because you just had to have one more banana daiquiri.

To give him some credit the concept of being a punk-grime artist is certainly an interesting one as previously these two only intersected through collaborations and mash-ups. But the overall effect of this EP is simply one of boredom it’s a well trodden path that has been done before and to a better standard. Rather than being fresh it just sounds outdated, just another rap song with loud guitars.

 

Barry Gray