Stormzy is officially making his return to music with the announcement of his upcoming album, This Is What I Mean.
Set to release on November 25 via 0207 Def Jam/Interscope Records, the project will mark his third full-length studio effort and will include a total of 12 tracks. This Is What I Mean is Stormzy’s first studio album in three years following 2019’s Heavy Is the Head, and is billed as “an intimate love letter to music,” as the 29-year-old rapper shares his “vulnerabilities, regret, frailties, healing, joy and triumph in a manner and to an extent that reframes the notion of what rap artists traditionally might do and be.”
Stormzy revealed in a press release that a bulk of the album’s creative energy was born from his music camp in the remote Osea Island, where he was surrounded by producers and musicians. “When you hear about music camps they always sound intense and sombre,” he said. “People saying: ‘We need to make an album.’ ‘We need to make some hit records.’ But this felt beautifully free.”
He continued, “We’re all musicians but we weren’t always doing music. Some days we played football or walked around taking pictures. And the bi-product to that was very beautiful music. Because when you marry that ethos with world class musicians and the best producers, writers and artists in the world, and we’re in one space, that’s a recipe for something that no one can really imagine. You can’t even calculate what that’s going to come up with. And it came up with a big chunk of this album.”
Check out the album art and tracklist via Stormzy’s Instagram post. This Is What I Mean drops November 25.
Elsewhere in music, Pusha T says a full Clipse reunion will depend on No Malice.
Tagged: entertainment blog, music, music blog, UK