Following a series of teasing singles over the last 18 months, Cashh has finally released the highly-anticipated project Return of the Immigrant. The album, effortlessly spanning across several genres, has a central theme of deportation and repatriation, unpacking Cashh’s experience as a citizen in exile.
The project includes some features from big UK artists, including M1llionz and BackRoad Gee, but the project is mostly featureless, with Cashh’s story-telling at the centre. The 23-track album is extensive, going from drill on ‘Pounds and Dollars’, to familiar road rap on ‘Trench Baby’, to a gleeful dancehall-infused interpolation of Mark Morrison’s classic ‘Return of the Mac’ on ‘Return of the Man’.Additionally littered with skits and vocal segments throughout, the opening track ‘Starving’ opens with an amusing yet frustrating skit with a British airport security officer, where Cashh has to constantly repeat himself as he is speaking in near-unintelligible patois to a White British man. His linguistic code-switching in this opener is indicative of the rest of the album, effortlessly switching between his Jamaican roots and his British culture.
Known as Cashtastic in his early career, he had just released an acclaimed mixtape before being deported in 2004. Born in Jamaica, he had lived in Peckham, South London since the age of 6, and had lived in the UK for four years before he was detained by the UK Border Agency (UKBA) at age 20. The reasons why he was detained were unclear, though the Home Office, unable to comment on specific cases, had said citizens who had lost the right to remain must leave the country, as per The BBC.
The case was well-documented in 2014, even before the Windrush Scandal, as it robbed the up-and-coming rapper of a successful career. But now, in 2021, where public attention toward race, immigration, and empire has rarely been higher, Cashh is back to tell the story of his hardships.
On the project, Cashh said “I poured 7 years worth of blood, sweat and tears into this project. At the pinnacle of my commercial success in March of 2014, I was removed from the UK back to my birth country of Jamaica and had to start from scratch. This is what inspired the title, as this is a reality many have faced in different ways under so many unjust circumstances, so to express my experiences and emotions through my art means everything to me,” as per GRM Daily.
The album is out now and can be listened to below:
