The much awaited second album from Braintax (Joseph Christie) has been a long time in development since his debut release in 2001 - Biro Funk, especially when you remember that he’s been around since ‘92. 

This album is more than a flirt with politics e.g. De La Soul, Public Enemy, but a pure unadulterated all-out political assault . Hailing from Leeds MC and British underground hip-hop stalwart Braintax lays down a thought provoking album. Put simply, he isn’t shooting blanks. In fact, perched among Braintax’s gun-barrel beats (check the dub-edged bounce of Anti-Grey), rich musical flavourings (soul-drenched anthem All I Need) and snappy, Yorkshire-tinged delivery are some of the most brazenly political lyrics you’ll hear this year.

Taking Joey Brain’s wrath are British and American foreign policy, the “war on terror”, Environmental issues, the Israel-Palestine conflict; and he has taken off the gloves.

“See, Middle East kids watch Al-Jazeera / From were they stand it’s a whole lot clearer,” he spits over the tripping beat of Syriana Style.

“Colonisers once again / Access to the oil, now count to 10.” But it’s his empathetic journey into the final hours of a young Palestinian suicide bomber in The Grip Again; with its chorus tag line of “F— Bush, Blair and Sharon”

The track is framed by RESPECT, former British Labour, MP George Galloway’s infamous anti-war speech and a brooding Middle Eastern folk beat, this is perhaps the most graphic and powerful track written on the subject.

It’s also Panorama’s centrepiece. Brains takes us behind the walls of a shelled Palestinian village, past roadblocks and heavily guarded border checkpoints, within a climate of utter alienation, fear and hopelessness, before the final, shocking conclusion, where the subject allows himself one last survey of “Sounds and the smells of a place called Earth / Where human rights vary on your place of birth.”

From whichever angle, this is tear-jerking, shivers-down-the-spine stuff. There’s no point in pretending that it isn’t problematic, maybe some may question the representation that a white British born man can rap from the POV of a young palestinian, whilst also short at 44minutes but looking past this it is possibly the best UK hip hop album of the year…

Ed