On Friday 31st of August, the grime scene received a very welcome gift, in the form of the epic East London MC D Double E’s debut album Jackuum. Seventeen tracks without any fillers, and three skits including a fitting tribute to Stormin, and a hilarious intro, Jackuum is D Double’s longest project to date, the second longest being his legendary mixtape On tha Double.
Jackuum features a stellar line up of grime producers and features with some of the biggest names including Wiley, Skepta, AJ Tracey, Sir Spyro, Swifta, Flithy Gearz, and of course his fellow Newham General Footsie. Whilst we’ve had tons of content, as well as some hard projects from D Double, like the aforementioned On tha Double mixtape; as well as his Bluku Bluku EP and Newham General projects, grime fans have had to be patient for a full studio album from D Double, however, it would seem that this patience has paid off.
In this current era of UK urban music, many artists who claim to represent the grime scene seem to continually be producing somewhat watered down albums, and there are always those lurking haters waiting for the first opportunity to spark off the grime is dead debate. Well, unfortunately for them Jackuum stands defiantly in the face of these naysayers; bringing the dark, greazy sound and aesthetic that artists like D Double have been pushing since the early 2000s. D Double has really been here from the start, originally spitting over jungle, and has long been heralded as one of the hardest spitters to come out of the UK, and now in 2018 we finally have a studio album from him, expectations were high, but the Bluku master delivered.
After the intro that will leave you in stitches, you’re slapped in the face with the hard hitting track “Bark it”, a grimey rendition featuring a catchy hook, this track will leave you screw facing at some points, and creasing at others, just like a classic D Double track should. This energy is carried on throughout the album with “Bark it” followed by the equally greazy and jumpy track “Flatmate” and continued on tracks like “Lookman” and “Trippin”. Equally as impressive on this album are the lower tempo tracks, like the Sir Spyro produced “Live tonight”, and the end track “Lyrical hypnosis”, which displays a more emotive element to D Double’s music; a real change of pace to the straight up fire he sprays on most tracks.
Some of the other stand out tunes include “Dem man dere”, “Schoolin”, as well as the singles “Nang” featuring Skeppy, “Back then”, “Shenanigans” and “Better than the rest” with the Godfather Wiley. Its rare to have a pure grime album that is this well put together, the beat selection, the hooks, the features, the bars and the flows everything is so on point. This album put’s to bed any notions that the state of the scene is in any trouble. With Jackuum, D Double has shown exactly why he’s your favourite MC’s favourite MC. Lets just hope he doesn’t keep us waiting another decade for his next project!