AJ Tracey has just announced that his second studio album ‘Flu Game’ will drop on April 16th. The album will include previously released tracks ‘Dinner Guest’, ‘West 10’, ‘Bringing It Back’ and ‘Anxious’, with the fourth single also being the opening song on the new 16-track LP.
Tracey made this album announcement alongside a mock press conference that he posted on his YouTube channel. Taking various questions from reporters in the video, the rapper plays a sports star that is signing for fictional basketball team ‘Revenge Athletic’ who have a “big game” on April 16th, the day of his album’s release.
Beyond the collaborative singles that have already been released, the tracklist for Tracey’s forthcoming project has revealed a wide range of new collaborations, including appearances from Nav, T-Pain, Kehlani, Millie Go Lightly, and SahBabii. Interestingly, these new features all come from American artists, which possibly speaks to Tracey’s desire to make music that taps into a transatlantic audience. This is a suggestion that is reinforced by the album title itself, with ‘The Flu Game’ being a moniker for one of Michael Jordan’s most memorable performances for the Chicago Bulls, and the resultant Americanised basketball theme that Tracey has created around the release of his new LP.
Indeed, the 27-year-old’s music has frequently borrowed from American-style trap production, perhaps most emphatically demonstrated by his collaboration with Aitch on ‘Rain’ in 2020, where the duo enlisted American superstar trap producer Tay Keith. His most recent single ‘Anxious’ similarly exhibits this musical influence, with sub-heavy 808 kicks and trap-style skittering hi-hats providing the musical backdrop for his braggadocios lyrics.
However, that is not to say that Tracey panders to an American audience or that he has turned his back on the domestic music scene that nurtured him; in fact, two of the singles from his forthcoming sophomore album, ‘West 10’ and ‘Bringing It Back’, imply the exact opposite. ‘West 10’ draws upon the UK garage sound of the early 2000s which has had a recent renaissance, whilst ‘Bringing It Back’ sees Tracey collaborate with fellow West Londoner Digga D on a UK drill-inspired track. These singles are built upon sounds that are specific to and distinctive of the UK music scene.
Equally, the overwhelming majority of the production on ‘Flu Game’ is attributed to British producers. In particular, Nyge makes many appearances on the production credits, which is unsurprising considering the success that the pair have historically had together. Most notably, Nyge produced Tracey’s ‘Butterflies’ back in 2018, a song that dominated radios throughout the summer that year and has since gone platinum in the UK.
The rapper’s previous album was his self-titled debut ‘AJ Tracey’ which dropped in 2019, peaking at number three in the UK album’s chart. His profile has undoubtedly grown since then, as has the UK rap scene which he is part of. With ‘Flu Game’, Tracey will hope to follow in the footsteps of other British rappers, such as Dave and Nines, that have secured a number one UK album in the past two years.
‘Flu Game’ will be available to stream on all platforms from April 16th.
