As someone who is always drawn to the lyrical component of a song, perhaps more so than the music, the idea of reviewing a spoken word album is not too much of a stretch for a music reviewer. And, to be honest, when the wordplay, the wit and wisdom, the social commentary, the blend of the profound and the profane is as great as it is here, then words are all you need.
It’s not that there isn’t some music backing the songs, but that is not the reason why we are here. For the most part, this acts as a distant background wash or as a scene setter, such as Diversity Policy’s polite soiree soundtrack.
Since performing on the BAFTA award-winning first season of Life & Rhyme alongside Benjamin Zephaniah in 2020, Kid Anansi’s star has been on the rise in performance poetry circles, and it isn’t hard to see why. In a world where, arguably, it is becoming hard to talk about important topics, especially if you wish to tackle them with your tongue pressed slightly in your cheek (I bet you can’t say that anymore either), Kid Anansi deals with many hot topics with ease and precise observation, humour and warmth.
From the aforementioned Diversity Policy, which positions two black people at a party both vying to be the token ethnic friend of “polite society,” a society whose attitudes lay in tatters by the end of its three-minute discussion to more lavatorial musings on taking a Shxt on Company Time. From How Straight Am I? and its Reductio ad absurdum (ooh, get me and my schoolboy latin) of homophobia to the metaphorical and almost traditionally poetic Diary of a Lost Man, this debut album is a brilliant and intimate and brilliantly intimate at that, look at modern society, especially as much of it is from the vantage point of situations and scenarios from the outside looking in – always the best place to view the absurdity of modern life and culture.
If you are one of those people who think that poetry is an unecessarily dense and confusing place, one of overly florrid language and pretensious vibes, then you need something that talks of both the minutiae and the overriding issues of modern life in everyday language, something that will make you both laugh and think. In short, you need Kid Anansi.