Kojey Radical Cautions You to 'Don't Look Down' On Sophmore Album

When you start off climbing, you don’t think; you just go. There is no time or desire to stop and think about what you’re doing. Only a single-minded focus on reaching your goal.

But when you’re standing at the top of the mountain, exhaling the cold air, you might, against your better judgment, chance a look down, and be confronted by what you have unknowingly lost.

The fallout from Reason to Smile, nominated for the Mercury Prize, deservedly positioned Kojey Radical, culturally and commercially, as a potent voice as he cracked the third wall.

This led to success, but what wasn’t spoken about until now is how success can change a person’s perspective and relationships, both personal and professional. So the first album was about getting there, and the work it took, the second is about what happens when you reach the destination.

East London’s Kojey Radical is a poet, plain and simple. He values meaningfulness and expression over everything else, and it’s why he releases his sophomore album Don’t Look Down, he doesn’t take notice of external pressure to craft a worthy follow-up to Reason to Smile.

Released three years after his debut and via Asylum Records UK / Warner Music UK, Don’t Look Down captures the complexities of his life through 16 tracks, each one providing its own essential angle and entry point into the Londoner’s inner world.

Working with the likes of Swindle, Ashton Sellars, and Emil, the production has silky smooth elements of funk and soul that reflect the light-heartedness of letting loose at a party, but also vulnerable, sensual and emotive dynamic expression through vivid instrumentation that plays a collection of sounds ranging from Hip Hop, disco, grime to Indie, Jazz to Ska.

And it’s through this project that we live, both hanging at the periphery and the beating heart of it as Kojey experiences, documents and examines the old and the new, engaging with themes of loss, renewal, hedonism, celebrity, love and fatherhood, friendship.

The album’s beauty is in its reliability as he navigates being a young adult, who, meeting his thirties, is suddenly expected to have it all figured out. There is a normalisation of being okay not to have all the answers, to lose things, even yourself and at some point meet yourself at a different point further down the life.

There is an expectation of what is lost can be found in loving someone. That a person can find the missing parts of themselves in someone else.

He searches for this type of relief on ‘Long Day’, seeking it from the company of women. “She’s love”, his friend says when Kojey asks about a woman at the party, cautioning him that he’s not ready for a commitment. “But that’s not for you my g.”

The track after it, ‘On Call’, sees the anticipated meeting play out. Suave and charming, he raps to love, the literal personification and abstract meaning with an electrifying back and forth.

Whilst on ‘Expensive’ the worth of love is explored and what it costs to maintain it and then departing from themes of love and romance, It’s not all crushes and infatuation though.

‘Problems’ is straight hard-hitting rap with Brixton’s Cristale and he attempted mind his business earlier on ‘Drinking My Water’, unbothered by the external noise, pressures and rejecting all distractions as he keeps himself to himself.

On ‘Conversation’, a political interruption and an examination of the socio-economic state of the world and Britain, which doesn’t seem out of place.

Speaking about the project, Kojey said: “I wanted to make this album more personal and more honest, we have to be able to accept that the messenger has flaws and all.

“So if I can’t give you me from a real perspective, as someone who hasn’t got it quite all the way figured out, then how are you supposed to trust me?”

There is an intermission signalled by Benjamin A.D on ‘Communication’, and then a break into the second part of the album sees the appearances of Ghetts, Col3trane, SOLOMON, Victor Ray, Jaz Karis, and Chrissi.

“I need peace, got war” Kojey raps on ‘Life of the Party’, disillusioned with his fame, whilst he doubles down on the feeling with raw honesty on ‘Breathe’, as things begin to feel too much and the loneliness bleeds through.

‘Every Day’ ends with the tapping of a phone screen, and then the recorded voice of his son speaking to him, as he has done throughout at points, acting like a faithful guide or a shining light.

To understand the shape of the project, let’s go back to the beginning.

“Don’t look down if you have the world at your feet”, is the advice freely given on the first track of the album, ‘Knock Knock’, in spoken word; it’s a weighted sentence as he hints at what he’s battling in the rest of the monologue. Survivor's guilt, responsibility, impostor syndrome, ego, and chasing meaning. All things Kojey struggles with throughout the album.

And the phrase is again echoed by his son at the end of the very last track, the tender ‘Baby Boy’, with Ghetts and himself sharing the joys and anxieties of fatherhood.

Both East Londoners are exposed, against the down-tempoed emotive piano chords. Kojey unpacks his own relationship with his father’s absence to emphasise his need to be present, weighed against his choice of career, causing his own unavailability at times and the fear it causes.

In the chorus, Chrissi voice is beautiful, loving and healing, acting as a bridge between the two rap verses and Ghetts himself offers life lessons and parental pride; and also acknowledges his own generational curses

At the end, fatherhood is what makes this part of the project. The dynamics of the relationship with the mother of his son are alluded to, the hopes of breaking generational trauma.

Don’t Look Down, is a critique of the constant distractions and disruptions that occur in your daily life, the challenges you face and also an examination of the shape that love takes, how it changes you and how faith is needed, and can be found at the end of the day through those closest to you.

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