Music
Bar for bar: a track-by-track guide to J Hus’ Big Conspiracy
Momodou Jallow, Bouff Daddy, Juju J, Fisherman, Farda, Lead Militerian of the Jamba Boys. Whatever you call him, J Hus is back. Here's your guide to the quotes and quotables on Big Conspiracy.
After what, for some fans, has seemed like an age of waiting, J Hus dropped his second album today.
But it’s arrival, however long-anticipated, wasn’t necessarily planned this way.
After rumours of a leak swirled over the weekend, and new tracks started cropping up on file sharing sites and YouTube, an announcement was rushed out that Big Conspiracy would be available to stream and download from January 24.
Featuring 11 new tracks in addition to the double drop of singles (Must Be and No Denying) that arrived towards the end of 2019, it’s a compact collection that sees the East Londoner continue to assert his status as one of the most exciting acts to come out of the UK this century.
“You can’t govern me, I show my defiance / Look deep in your soul if you’re looking for guidance”
Song: Big Conspiracy (feat. iceè tgm)
Where his debut, Common Sense, served as an introduction to the sounds and characters that inhabit J Hus’ music, Big Conspiracy feels like a mission statement. Here, Hus sets out his stall on a slinky R&B cut: outlining the tussle between defiant anti-establishment wrangling and deeper spirituality that will play out across the album.
“Feds in a helicopter / I seen pigs fly but I never seen a unicorn”
Song: Helicopter (feat. iceè tgm)
Half-whispering over a plucked bass, Hus draws for metaphor and simile as he describes heists, chases, and the life of a hustler playing out around the city. Newcomer iceè tgm( who Hus has said is his sister) lends her rich husky vocals once more, contributing an effortlessly cool hook to the chorus.
“How you gonna run the world? You can’t even run your life”
Song: Fight For Your Right
Fight For Your Right finds Hus in contemplative mood. Over a drifting synth line and heavy kicks he weighs his responsibilities to himself with his desire – as the hook goes – to stand up and fight for the rights of his peers. Still just 23, Hus is torn between being able to just enjoy each day as it comes and forging towards a greater purpose. Or, as he tweeted recently: “The key to life is being a childish but responsible person. It’s a bit confusing.”
“The fakers form an alliance, but the real will always triumph”
Song: Triumph
Triumph marks the first time on the album that we hear JAE5’s instantly-recognisable producer tag, along with a characteristic host of twisted vocal samples and discordant percussive stabs that just, sort of, somehow, work? It’s also the first time we hear Hus in a more playful mood. In contrast with the gritty street braggadocio of the track’s lyrics, he bends and twists his idiosyncratic delivery around slang, adlibs to his aunties, and performs comic s-backed pronunciations on the chorus. A real triumph indeed.
“I scoped her from far because I’m the best sniper”
Song: Play Play (feat. Burna Boy)
Play Play is Hustla’s love letter to the women he’s encountered in his life as much as it is to his own sexual prowess. The song plays out as an extended, tongue-in-cheek metaphor in which a Call of Duty-worthy array of phallic weaponry takes the place of that other great male obsession: their own penises.
“I met that girl back in October / Then I gave her the cu-coom-bah”
Song: Cucumber
Just like his Fanta with no ‘hice’, this track is destined for enthusiastic sing-alongs as Hus does vocal balloon art with the vowels of the track title. Add this to his already burgeoning canon of smooth lounge come-ons.
"We’re already popping, we don’t need champagne”
Song: Repeat (feat. Koffee)
Rising Jamaican reggae star Koffee takes centre stage on another JAE5-helmed production, sprinkling the verses with her honeyed vocals while Hus fills in on the chorus – together the duo toast their successes, and the money and life it’s brought them.
“She know I want her, she a fortune teller”
Song: Fortune Teller
Over off-kilter percussion and sample snippets, Hus tells a story of adolescent cat-and-mouse with a bop and groove that has all the makings of another NSG-style viral dance craze.
“Daily offender, crazy eastender”
Song: Reckless
Hus has always been open about the influence noughties US rap has had on his music, and it’s clear here in the louche flow he drapes over the plucked strings, G-funk flare, and sharp snares of Reckless. Keen-eared Top Boy fans might recognise a line cribbed from Hus by Dave for his Modie character in the show too…
“Ain't seen nothing like this: Juju J in live flesh”
Song: No Denying
Following a long tradition of artists who adopt alter egos as part their creative process, Hus embraces a new moniker: Juju J. A reference to his claims of practising black magic, the character is Hus at his most powerful, paranoid, and combative – reflected here in a driving, UK drill bassline and eerie, flickering strings.
“I think he's an opp, but I need a confirmation / I see you with a opp, now you need an explanation”
Song: Must Be
One of the catchiest expositions of suspicion and mistrust you’re likely to hear, Must Be’s smooth sax and walking bassline provide the soundtrack to J Hus’ wary treatise on the importance of keeping your circle close.
“I cut through, Sun Tzu not Casanova”
Song: Love Peace & Prosperity
Having spent his days in prison gorging on books, Hus now litters his lyrics with literary, historical, scientific, and cultural ephemera – giving a nod here to the noted Chinese credited for The Art Of War. As well as its titular riff, the track’s buoyant vocals and bubbling synths mark Big Conspiracy’s penultimate tune out as a sequel to Common Sense standout Spirit.
“I'm from the road so you don't think I'm intelligent”
Song: Deeper Than Rap
A four-minute monologue over piano and synthesised strings, Deeper Than Rap leaps from petty beef, to the atrocities of empire, drinks spilled on trainers, astronomy, religion, and just about everything in between. “I wanna fix the world,” he intones, “don't know where to begin.” It’s a scattered manifesto, but one that promises greatness to come.
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