LO&B is the sound of a man being stylishly vulnerable. From the first moment, this album sets a mood that’s languid, smoky, and effortlessly seductive. It moves with unhurried confidence as the beats glide with a velvety smoothness, built on simple drum loops, lilting basslines, and soft Rhodes keys, a stripped back palette that recalls golden-era A Tribe Called Quest, yet somehow more intimate. When Da Flyy Hooligan makes his entrance on the second track, his voice doesn’t crash into the mix. It slides in unfazed. The warmth, the swing, the elegance of the keys and the restraint in the drums all suggest real craftmanship, and it has more in common with classic soul and R&B than with braggadocious hip-hop.

On BLUE, a track that tackles betrayal and emotional whiplash, the delivery is measured but emotionally venomous, with the kind of cutting lines you only write when you’re still nursing the wound. A particularly filthy image (“Now you wanna play the victim when I call you out/Don’t come back to this house and I can still see the spunk on your mouth”) lands with force, precisely because it’s so at odds with the delicately soulful bed of sound it rides over. The contrast is uncomfortable, intimate, and real. The production is smooth as silk, but the emotional transparency of the lyrics is raw, with no fronting or posturing. LO&B is about navigating the mess of being human, and particularly the bittersweet territory of romantic wreckage. Verb T’s appearance, as ever, drips with melancholy wisdom, and he sounds like a trusted friend pulling up a chair in the aftermath of a heartbreak, sounding more like a conversation than a feature. Drenched in atmosphere, and far deeper than it first appears, this is one of the most emotionally resonant UK hip-hop records of the year. The beats are built on warm, melancholic soul loops, and Da Flyy Hooligan strips them back to their emotional core, reclaiming their original expressions of heartbreak, yearning, and vulnerability, with genuine reflection and restraint.