As Chase and Status’s social media feeds have recently underlined, the drum’n’bass duo currently have three tracks in the UK Top 30. Their standalone collaboration with singer Becky Hill, Disconnect, and Baddadan, a track from 2Ruff Vol 1 that features UK rapper Flowdan, have both been hanging around the Top 10 for months, the latter possibly boosted by boxer Tyson Fury adopting it as his walk-on music. They were recently joined by another track from 2Ruff Vol 1, Liquor and Cigarettes, on which rapper ArrDee adds a certain wit to a raging musical backdrop conjured by Chase and Status and fellow drum’n’bass producer Hedex: “I think I made it very clear,” he says, confidently, after describing an argument with a girl that largely consists of both parties shouting “yeah?” and “yeah” at each other.
You can understand why Chase and Status feel obliged to crow. It is 12 years since their commercial breakthrough with their second album No More Idols, an eternity in pop terms. A naysayer could argue that the British duo’s imperial phase – when they were hailed in some quarters as a kind of millennial answer to the Prodigy, and Rihanna regularly called upon their production services – ended some time ago. But how many singles does said naysayer currently have in the charts? Still, their recent albums have had a distinct air of the elder statesmen about them. From 2019, Rtrn II Jungle did exactly what the title suggests: big on breakbeats and guest appearances by Jamaican dancehall stars, flecked with nods to early 90s drum’n’bass classics – M-Beat’s Incredible and Engineers Without Fears’ Spiritual Aura among them – it was a love letter to the early days of the scene that spawned them. Last year’s What Came Before seemed equally informed by the past, its sound frequently recalling old-school hardcore.
Billed as a mixtape rather than an album, 2Ruff Vol 1 seems less inclined to retrospection. The list of collaborators is heavy with next-generation drum’n’bass producers, most of them still at primary school when Chase and Status broke through: not just Hedex, but Mazey and Manchester’s Bou. And there’s more of an attempt to strip things back to basics. It’s devoid of Chase and Status’s past musical diversions into garage or dubstep or mid-tempo breaks, and of tracks that display their ability to harness a huge pop chorus to their sound. The guest vocalists are virtually all MCs rather than singers. Only Say the Word, which features regular collaborator Clementine Douglas, is obviously song-based. Elsewhere, the rappers often seem like an addition rather than a star turn, fighting for space amid the more-is-more production: a reminder that the current explosion of UK rap has its roots not in hip-hop but raves, where MCs were part of entertainment, not its focus.
You can appreciate the staunchness of this approach, but it proves something of a mixed blessing over the course of an album. In isolation, any of the 10 tracks would sound like rowdy good fun; in sequence, the overall effect is a little numbing. Everything is permanently cranked up to 10, except for the moments when, inconceivably, it suddenly gets cranked up to 11: the basslines, the honking synths, the preposterous metal guitar over which Stefflon Don does her stuff on Selecta, the squeals derived from the Bomb Squad’s productions on old Public Enemy tracks. The rhythms are set fast to a techstep-derived thump-crash, interspersed with wait-for-the-drop drum rolls or, on Massive and Crew, a burst of the kind of rabble-rousing beat that’s usually followed by a massed shout of “Eng-LAND”. When a breakbeat briefly appears on Baddadan, it feels like a gasp of air.
In fairness, subtlety has never really been Chase and Status’s USP. It feels pointless to suggest that listening to 2Ruff Vol 1 in one sitting feels like being trapped on a night bus next to a bloke wrapped in a Jägermeister flag who won’t stop shouting. That’s partly because it probably isn’t designed to be listened to in one sitting: if ever something seemed like a collection of tracks made to be cherrypicked and placed on to playlists or dropped into DJ sets at peak time, this is it, which might well account for the delineation between “album” and “mixtape”. And partly because you suspect that the bloke in the Jägermeister flag might be who it’s aimed at, a feeling compounded by the hook-up with Tyson Fury and endorsements from Fast and Furious star Jason Statham: one reason for Chase and Status’s longevity is that they know their target market. Said target market is likely to shout all the louder on receipt of 2Ruff Vol 1: everyone else might find themselves grateful when they arrive at their stop and edge away, in search of some light and shade, reminded that some things are best in small doses.
This week Alexis listened to
Fabiana Palladino and Jai Paul – I Care
Jai Paul’s minimal-but-cavernous production – essentially a synth, a drum machine and a lot of echo – meets a song haunted by the ghost of old R&B slow jams: simple, but hugely effective.
