Wiley- Playtime Is Over [Review]

by Tego on Wed, 2007/05/30 - 4:57pm Post to Twitter

Artist: Wiley
Album: Playtime Is Over
Label: Big Dada/ Ninja Tune
Release Date: June 4th 2007

There is so much hype around Wiley right now that you could easily be convinced that it was 2001, or whenever it was he first had buzz, it was a street buzz originally, Wiley was a ‘Name’, he was a part of the group with the greatest name in garage ‘Pay As You Go Cartel’ [Pay As You Go Vodafone phones had just been made available in Woolworths for the first time. We were all pissing ourselves]. The critics are currently eating up that "Godfather of Grime" tag on his press release; if there's one project they have to look like they understand it's 'Playtime Is Over' [kind of like when Statik called himself 'Chancellor Of Grindie' and NME put him in the "Cool list" out of pure confusion]. This, the latest [and last?] solo album from the often controversial, rarely interesting rapper/ producer known as Wiley Kat; Wiley for short.

I read an interview with Wiley a few months back in which he was talking about his genius as a producer. Which I was willing to play along with for the time being, I hadn’t consciously heard any Wiley production since Roll Deep’s last album, maybe he’d managed to steel and swallow some of Timabaland’s DNA [like Nelly Furtado or something], or maybe his work on Roll Deep’s ‘In At The Deep End’ led to a whole new lane of production [somewhere near Heartbreak Avenue but at the same time, quite far away from ‘Heartbreak Avenue’]. He worked on 'Boy In Da Corner' which is an undisputed classic. I'm not 100% sure as to whether he produced 'Gangsters' [the album's only real high point] on which he throws shots at his superiors Sway "Been away for a year have Sway for a year" [What did he mean? What does he ever mean? It's debatable] and Lethal Bizzle "Fire Camp you aint gangsters" [Wiley long ago dispensed with his need for subtlety] The song itself is pretty simple, a collapsing cold synth line interrupted every second bar with the phrase 'Gangsters' but sometimes simplicity is what you want, with no offence intended “Grime” is pretty simple. Wiley would have done well to figure this out for himself before recording songs like 'Come Lay With me' featuring the harmony vocals of some around the way chick called Rachel who is as bad a singer as I've ever heard. I can't make out a word she's saying, I don't think I want to. I hear Wiley though, I’m pretty sure Rachel wants him to lie down, she is kissing his neck apparently. Is Rachel a pre-teen? Is that why her voice is so flat and unaccomplished? Probably; but that’s no excuse for just how bad this song is. Possibly the low point on the album although it has competition, ‘Flyboy’ which features the far superior vocals of one time nemesis Scorcher is the drill in your head you really didn’t ask for. Adopting a similar structure to ‘Gangsters’ with none of the debonair, the phrase ‘Fly Boy’ drops every bar over the top of some really abrasive key board punching. Genius production it is not.

Lyrically the album was never going to be much in my eyes, but maybe what Wiley lacked in versatility he could make up for in originality? Alas, from song to song the E3 born angry rapper does nothing but rehash your least favourite U.S hip-hop album track with a grating bitter edge. ‘50/50’ [the album’s opener] is about nothing in particular, Wiley’s back and he’s 50/50 [kinda like Lemar but not as good]. ‘Bow E3’ is about…Bow which is in the London postcode of E3. Apparently “People have been saying I [Wiley] don’t rep for Bow” so he’s decided to make a song about Bow. If you’ve ever been to Bow you know it’s really not a place worth writing a song about. Wiley trails off as he does on every one of the album’s songs and begins discussing how great he is [a theory I’m having serious trouble subscribing to]. ‘Slippin’ is his best shot at developing a concept, the chorus tells of a time past that Wiley was caught “Slippin” in South West London, he actually ended up having to run home from South West London, which is a funny image altogether. Being from South West London I have to say I enjoyed the numerous references to Brixton and how hard we are down here [which is way true], apart from that though, it’s a bland and shallow attempt at a story especially when you compare it to Dizzee’s new single ‘Sirens’ which paints pictures and has a beginning, middle and end to every verse. My press release promises that ‘Baby Girl’ is going to be “heartfelt and funny” which I guess in a way, it is. It’s the closest we get to a normal person on the album, but it’s still not close enough. ‘Letter 2 Dizzee’ promises entirely too much. Some genuine emotion? Some insider perspective? Some level of humbleness? No. I deliberately listened to the song three times on repeat in an attempt to understand Wiley before even starting the album. I feel I know nothing more than I did.

I feel like most critics review British hip-hop differently from the way they review American hip-hop. I’ve probably been guilty of it myself at times, it’s just that in most cases if I think something British is average I pretend I didn’t see it. A lot of the time I genuinely don’t see it, as I don’t frequent 90% of bedrooms in London, mores the pity. I also don’t have time to go around everybody’s MySpace hoping to find something worth writing about [although judging by the number of messages I receive a day requesting that I do so you’d think it was my job]. But when given the outlet to discuss British hip-hop, I generally call a spade a spade. There was once this really pretty spade called ‘A Breath Of Fresh Attire’ it was really good, like the best spade I’ve ever used maybe. Not everybody knows how good a spade it was because they weren’t buying spades that summer or something. As a spade I’d call ‘Playtime Is Over’ a rake, it’s no good in my garden, my garden’s mostly concrete and the sound of dragging a rake over concrete makes my teeth grind. Yes. ‘Playtime Is Over’ would be best described as a rake being dragged over the concrete in my garden.

Hear the album on Wiley’s MySpace

p.s. I understand that a lot of people now hate me…well a lot of people hated me before this so get in line!

p.p.s. Next week Dizzee Rascal’s ‘Maths & English’