It’s been four years since UK rapper Dave released an album. In that time, he released a string of singles starting with “Starlight” in 2022, and coming to a head with a collaborative single “Sprinter,” which has amassed hundreds of millions of streams and brought his name to many more people via Central Cee. However, since his 2021 release “We’re All Alone In This Together,” navigating the world has become a bit more challenging with short form video and the subsequent brainrot taking over. Labels have been pushing artists to curate their art for the short-attention span world we currently live in. Dave responds with a slow four minute opener on The Boy Who Played The Harp.
Dave’s third album, The Boy Who Played The Harp, doesn’t deviate from his artistic style. It’s a story-first album, where Dave confronts the lack of progress in his own life. His 2019 album was a therapeutic journey, while 2021’s project found him perhaps a bit angry with himself. In 2025, Dave is at his most frustrated, shining a light inward and on those close to him. The ten-track album features only three songs less than four minutes long, and two of the rest are over six. One such epic features Kano, a legendary figure from the UK grime scene in the 2000s who has since gone on to act in the Netflix UK crime series Top Boy. Kano did a lot for the grime subgenre in the 2000s, but he never received the same undeniable praise that Dave has in the current music scene. Dave addresses this on the song “Chapter 16,” where he and Kano engage in a back-and-forth exchange of lines. The dialogue the two engage in starts a recurring idea throughout the album of living a life of legacy.
Dave is deeply introspective, discussing community struggles, relationship struggles, and his own inner turmoil. He feels that his artistry is solely for expressing his pain, believing that people wouldn’t care if he were happy. He repeats the line on “My 27th Birthday” multiple times, suggesting that he’s happy that his ex-girlfriend cheated on him, because it gives him a reason to be sad and would continue his success. However, I see this as a sign of lostness. It should be easy for someone who has “everything” to be happy, yet Dave repeatedly proves on this album that he’d rather be alone.
“Raindance” with Tems is perhaps the only song on this album that evokes a sense of brevity and a moment of liberty, offering us a pause from the overall unhappy tone. The Afrobeat production is a welcome distraction but Dave comes in again with a serious face and sobers you up with reality. While it may not be as danceable as “Location,” it’s a great song nonetheless. I find it challenging to discuss this album with only one week to reflect on, as it doesn’t truly capture the depth of the topics and struggles explored.
James Blake is a featured artist on several tracks, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he was an executive producer. His fingerprints are all over this album, from his voice and falsetto to his organ work and soulful approach to rap songs, as he has done with Travis Scott in the past. However, what Blake didn’t achieve with Travis Scott was this sense of melancholy, which is present in Dave’s lyrics. I would be surprised if this album had mainstream appeal, similar to Kendrick Lamar’s 2022 album, “Mr. Morale & The Big Steppers,” where he similarly shone a light on himself and almost alienated mainstream listeners. It took a few months or years for the wider public to truly accept his decision, and I wonder if Dave will face a similar response or if the rest of the world isn’t ready to hear his perspective this time.
All this being said, I was stuck in traffic yesterday and found myself getting lost in the music. I find myself returning to the titular track the most, with the reflections on helplessness speaking to my Gen Z self. “Fairchild” is a call to men, older and young, to police themselves and their predatory behaviours by shifting the POV to that of women, hoping that they/we can do better. It depresses Dave to see his “conscious” music fall on deaf ears, leading to no change at all. It saddens me too because this is a superb collection of songs and will undoubtedly go down as one of the best rap albums of the year yet it is too serious for TikTok and Instagram reels to platform and promote it like the “Sprinter” single a few short years ago.
Please listen to this album and face reality for 48 minutes. You will come out on the other side the better for it.
