Less than a year after releasing a 20th anniversary edition of his Mercury Prize-winning, genre-defining debut,
Boy in da Corner, grime pioneer
Dizzee Rascal initiated his
Big Dirte3 imprint with
Don't Take It Personal, his eighth studio album. 2017's menacing
Raskit and 2020's more streamlined
E3 AF marked
Dizzee's return to harder-edged rap after straying into dance-pop territory, resulting in some of his most commercially successful material (
Tongue n' Cheek spawned four U.K. number one singles) but a nadir in terms of artistic quality. Having regained his focus, he's returned to making upbeat material, drawing far more from U.K. garage and funky house than drill or trap, but avoiding the chart-baiting, ill-fitting features from pop stars and predictable samples that marred his more commercial-minded work. On opening tracks "Stay in Your Lane" and "How Did I Get So Calm,"
Dizzee reflects on the path his life has taken, while providing a motivational message stressing the importance of perseverance. The tracks feature brisk, shuffling two-step beats and smooth guitars, but they still have angular basslines and ravey bleeps which make it clear that
Dizzee hasn't abandoned the abrasiveness of early grime and garage. "Sugar and Spice" features production duo
iLL BLU, also returning to garage after embracing U.K. drill, and it successfully incorporates
Dizzee's swift rhymes into sweet R&B harmonies and gliding beats. The jet-setting love song "Roll Wit Me" smoothly dips into Afroswing, and it works well, but it's one of the rare moments that this intense, riveting album chills out, along with the more atmospheric and tender "Here for Now." "What You Know About That" provides hard grime for the gym, with help from scene stalwarts
Jme and
D Double E, and "Get Out the Way" (featuring
BackRoad Gee) shows how naturally
Dizzee's off-the-wall rhyming style adapts to stark, clanging drill. The album's most curiously introspective moment, placed right in the middle of the track listing, is "You Can Have Dat," in which
Dizzee begs a former partner for custody of his children. The remainder of the record returns to hyped-up garage and grime with nasty basslines, from party-ready tracks like "Switch and Explode" to more aggressive boasts such as "Keep That Same Energy." Like
Dizzee's previous two efforts,
Don't Take It Personal feels like the work of an older, more experienced rapper who still wants to push things forward, and he sounds like he's having more fun than he has in a while. ~ Paul Simpson
![True [Deluxe Edition]](http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/0602537484607_p0_v2_s90x140.jpg "True [Deluxe Edition]")
