With “The Boy Who Played the Harp” having just arrived, fans are excited. But has Dave delivered a fire hip-hop album?
Dave is back. Returning with his new album, The Boy Who Played The Harp, it’s a deeply personal and reflective work of rap, with some elements lifted from multiple genres, including hip-hop, pop, and spiritual music.
This is one of the most highly anticipated albums of the year. With speculation mounting as to who would feature, we got our answers early with a tracklist drop a few days ago. With features ranging from James Blake to Kano, the rapper has kept things safe — maybe a little too safe.
Review and Sound Breakdown
His latest drop leans heavily into religious symbolism — and iconography — with the rapper portraying himself in various ways, threading his personality into a framework of personal beliefs.
Its opening track, History, instantly sets the tone. Its uplifting mood, and the rapper’s cadence lean into this, supported by James Blake. It’s a bit self-indulgent; you could pass it off as “that’s just what rappers do,” though this time it feels a little different. Rounded by multisyllabic wordplay and his casual, soft delivery — it is a reservation of composite metaphors.
175 Months recounts regret and loss, tackling narratives that relay his personal struggles over rolling snares, pitch-warped vocals, and organs. The track’s title is a reference to his brother Christopher’s incarceration and saturates the song’s purpose. Stepping into this second track, it’s clear his lyrical capabilities are innate to him.
We then come to No Weapons, and this begins to turn the tide, thanks to Jim Legxcy on production. Inspired by a Biblical line, it features a melodical production on a redemption song with choir-like touches. This leads into the album’s standout track, Chapter 16, featuring Kano in a back-and-forth dinner conversation. The two trade bars for nearly six minutes in a captivating performance.
“Like Max Verstappen, but the race is different,
Taste is different, this adult dances in my pole positions”,
The two complement each other, with Kano offering strong advice for his host:
“This game ain’t for the throne,
and kings are checkable”,
Raindance is indicative of the UK scene, with double snares landing throughout. I personally don’t feel this style suits him, given his penchant for ornate, descriptive, and profound language. The production feels cliché — tired, and overcooked. While Tems lands lavish vocals, the lyrics drag its delivery into gaudy territory.
The next track, Selfish, featuring James Blake again, doesn’t miss. Dave recollects feelings of anguish, touching on his mental health, and trauma over a haunting piano piece, with vocals once again supplied by Tems.
Leading into his signature series, My 27th Birthday is outstanding, with stripped-back production, using his day of birth as a totem for introspective notions. Filled with symptomatic Omoregie rhyme schemes, it tears into thematic brews of morality, the constant tug of war with the self and social hypocrisies: “I could see the blood on the lyrics I write for myself, I cried about slavery, then went to Dubai with my girl”. The rapper charges himself with posturing and a duality we’re all guilty of at times.
The album is lyrically consistent with the lyricist’s level of skill, and this comes as no surprise. Compositionally, it bibs and bobs. On Marvellous, its story follows a young man named “Josiah“, a footballer who could have gone the whole nine yards, though it’s short-lived, and we’re left wanting more. Fairchild continues with a visceral story relating the harassment and abuse faced by women he knew. He is joined by Nicole Blakk, who drops an emotional verse — one that is descriptively hard-hitting: “My belt in a buckle, my keys in my knuckles”.
The Verdict
Dave is a talented lyricist, though the production on The Boy Who Played The Harp needs work. When it does snap into full drive — like on Marvellous — for such a hard-hitting song, its short duration leaves you thinking, “is that it?“.
Each song is laced with a classic Dave motif — vividly detailed, simile-driven, and sincere. His pen game is laden with sensory output, though undermined by what is far from a stratified curation. Lyrically, it’s strong; musically, it doesn’t quite click. The production often veers into a sound too soft for the narrative he drives, and one great song withers away thanks to banality in compositional choices. There’s no doubt he is up there with the best in the rap game, but a little care with music could have taken this album to a dizzying place.
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