Outside of college campuses, DIY arts collectives and the experimental hip-hop community, it’s rare to experience truly powerful, performance-driven spoken word. In the hands of an artist like Kojey Radical, however, the crossover potential of the performed word is exhilaratingly evident. A savant-like onstage presence, his work straddles slam poetry, hip-hop and R&B with consummate ease, weaving complex, eloquent lyricism into heady, irresistible soundscapes.
Radical, aka Kwadwo Adu Genfi Amponsah, emerges from a rich seam of literate, genre-hopping urban music for which a handful of British cities have long been a fertile breeding ground. Like such forebears as Roots Manuva, Tricky and Dizzee Rascal, Kojey Radical juggles lofty intellectualism and sonic physicality throughout each track, peppering his verses with ambitious free-thinking and reactive, self-aware wit, a combination that ensures his audience is continuously challenged but never alienated. Couplets such as, “I attempt to wow her with amateur philosophy, speaking in riddles as if I care about Syria’s democracy”, from 2016’s “The Garden Party”, are useful cases in point. Radical is aware of the simultaneous power and inaccessibility of many of his artistic objectives, so endeavours to offer his listener a humane entry point at every turn. It’s searing, stirring stuff, which expresses complex issues of masculinity, identity and self-worth to empowering effect.
Visually, too, he’s a striking figure, as any viewer of his numerous music videos will attest. Those clips (a word which seems a little flippant when applied to these intricate visual works) are galvanising vignettes from inside Radical’s head, whose imagery is vivid without ever falling into obviousness. Unsurprisingly, Radical is a graduate of London College of Fashion, and his hawk-eye is frequently evident.
As 2018 looms, it’s difficult to name a more articulate voice for UK urban music than Kojey Radical. Yet, as he told The Guardian earlier this year, this is only the beginning: “I’m waiting for a day when being opinionated and speaking out is the norm. That’s when being the voice of a generation will mean something; otherwise, I’m just a voice in a generation.”
Check out our weekly playlist on Spotify for more of Radical's music and a few more spoken word geniuses.
