Manchester rapper Aitch, who has been making waves within UK hip-hop for the last few years, has announced his debut album Close To Home, with the first single “1989” slated for release tomorrow (May 20th). You can pre-save the forthcoming record here.
Close To Home will be released on August 19th via Capitol Records, and following on from Aitch’s own words to NME in a past interview, where he stated that his first album would “100,000 percent be a proper Manchester album”, the upcoming project has been described as “a love letter to the city that shaped him”.
Speaking with NME, Aitch even stated that he wanted to try to get Liam Gallagher on his next album, saying that he wanted to ask the Oasis songwriter: “why are you not on my album yet?”. When asked by NME if Gallagher would consider working with Aitch, he responded with: “He seems like a nice lad, but I don’t wanna be on anyone’s album.” Even if we’re not going to hear an Aitch x Liam Gallagher collab anytime soon, it has been stated that Close To Home will “reveal a well of hidden depths to surprise, delight and charm”, so we may well be seeing a number of very exciting collaborations.
The first single “1989” samples “Fool’s Gold” by The Stone Roses, and will drop tomorrow alongside a video directed by Kelvin Jones, shot in Aitch’s aforementioned home city of Manchester. The video will go live at 12:00pm (BST), and you can tune in to the premiere at the link below.
Aitch’s prolificacy as an artist has been on full display this year, as he has released three standalone singles, including “Baby” with Ashanti, which was released in March, and two collaborative efforts; “War” with Brighton rapper ArrDee and “Just Coz” with Giggs. “Just Coz”, the most recent of these singles, can be listened to below, alongside its accompanying music video.
Aitch’s beginnings can be traced back to 2015, when a video of him freestyle rapping garnered him some local popularity and received several thousand views on YouTube. His very first single “Back To Basics” was released in 2017, which was followed by the E.P. On Your Marks later that year. The rapper’s breakthrough came in 2018 when he released “Straight Rhymez”, a track that turned the nation’s eyes towards the young rising star.
Aitch has since released two E.Ps since On Your Marks; 2019’s AitcH20, and Polaris in 2020, which saw a collaboration with AJ Tracey and Tay Keith on closing track “Rain”.
