Witty, clear-eyed and free of self-pity: Slowthai at Brixton Academy reviewed

Those who cherish the notion that the current prime minister really is ‘electoral Viagra’ should have paid a visit to Brixton last Friday evening to see what actual young people think about him. Before Slowthai — the young rapper from Northampton who ignored complaints about the toxification of political discourse by brandishing a dummy of Johnson’s severed head at this year’s Mercury Prize ceremony — even took to the stage, the 5,000 or so kids took up a chant of their own volition: ‘Fuck Boris! Fuck Boris!’

The Britain of Slowthai and his fans is not one in which anything can be overcome with a bit of Dunkirk spirit. The smell of weed, that eternal signifier of boundless ambition, hung heavy over the stalls (he introduced ‘Drug Dealer’ by asking ‘Who knows a drug dealer?’ It sounded as though everyone present did), and the title of the album for which he was nominated for the Mercury, Nothing Great About Britain, doesn’t burst with optimism.