Hoodies All Summer by Kano
Hoodies All Summer is the sixth studio album by British rapper Kano. The album was released on 30 August 2019 by Parlophone Records and Bigger Picture Music. It follows the album Made in the Manor, released in 2016. It includes guest appearances from Ghetts, D Double E, Popcaan, Kojo Funds and Lil Silva, with production handled by Blue May and Jodi Milliner. Promotion The album was announced on 19 July 2019, alongside its cover art and track listing. Two singles were released on the same day: "Trouble" and "Class of Deja" featuring D Double E and Ghetts. Hoodies All Summer was met with critical acclaim upon its release. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalized rating out of 100 to reviews from music critics, the album has received an average score of 84, indicating "universal acclaim", based on six reviews. Kitty Empire of The Guardian stressed the album's "clarion-clear narratives about knife crime and the importance of good times", adding that these topics are "delivered not just with anger and pathos, but humour." William Rosebury of The Line of Best Fit concluded that Hoodies All Summer is "an exceptional achievement, proving once again that Kano is one of the UK’s most versatile, thoughtful and talented voices", while complimenting the stripped-back production that "consistently ensures that Kano’s voice is always front and centre."
“It feels quite sinister,” Kano tells Apple Music about the title of his exceptional sixth album, <i>Hoodies All Summer</i>. “But a hoodie’s also like a defence mechanism—a coat of armour, protection from the rain. It’s like we always get rained on but don’t worry, we’re resilient, we wear hoodies all summer. We’re prepared for whatever.” That description is fitting for 10 songs that tear down stereotypes and assumptions to reveal the humanity and bigger picture of life in London’s toughest quarters. On “Trouble” that means reflecting with nuance and empathy on the lives being lost to postcode wars and knife and gun crime.<br /> “People become so used to the fact that these situations happen that they are almost numb to it,” he says. “Young kids dying on the street—it gets to a point where it’s like you lose count, and you just move on really quickly and forget a person’s name two minutes after hearing about it.”<br /> Like 2016’s <i>Made in the Manor</i>, this is an album rooted in his experiences of living in East London. This time, though, the focus is less introspective, with Kano, as he says, “reversing the lens” towards the communities he grew up in. “I just wanted to speak about it in a way where it's like, ‘I understand, I get it.’ I'll get into the psyche of why people do what they do. It’s about remembering that these unfortunate situations come about because of circumstances that are out of the hands of people involved. Not everyone’s this gang-sign, picture-taking, hoodie-wearing gang member. That’s the way they put us across in the media. Yes, some people are involved in crime, and some people are <i>not</i>—they just live in these areas, and it’s a fucked-up situation.”<br /> Kano’s at his poetic and potent best here. Lines such as “All our mothers worry when we touch the road/'Cause they know it’s touch-and-go whether we’re coming home” (“Trouble”) impact fast and deep, but he also spotlights hope amid hard times. “I feel like we’re resilient people and there’s always room for a smile and to celebrate the small wins, and the big wins,” he says. “That’s when you hear [tracks] like 'Pan-Fried' and 'Can't Hold We Down'—you can't hold us down, no matter what you do to us, you can't stop us. We’re a force, you can't stop us creatively. I want more for you: I’ve made it through, I want you to see what I’ve seen. It’s about everyone having the opportunity to see more, so they’ll want more, to feel like they are more.”<br /> If the wisdom of Kano’s bars positions him as an elder statesman of UK rap, the album as a whole confirms that he’s an undisputed great of the genre. Musically, it sets new standards in vision and ambition, complementing visceral electronic beats with strings and choirs as it moves through exhilarating left turns and dizzying switches of pace and intensity. “I wanted it to be an exciting listen,” he says. “Like the beat that comes in from nowhere in ‘Teardrops’—it’s like a slap in the face. This ain’t the album that you just put on in the background. I didn't want it to be that. You need to dedicate time out of your day to listen to this.”
