After months of hype, Deptford rapper DigDat drops Pain Built this week. Released on the Sony Music label, Pain Built is a serious project, featuring some of his hardest beats and bars to date. After lying relatively low since 2020s Ei8ht Mile, DigDat comes back with a bang, coming through with some no-nonsense, hard-hitting verses. Listen to Pain Built below:
As speculated previously, the album has no listed features, a rarity in modern rap music. Even the smaller artists in the scene will have collaboration with their fellow members or other similarly popular artists, but DigDat holds his own through the albums ten tracks. Some fans were hoping that the track list, released days before the album itself, simply had undisclosed the feature list. However, we know now that the track list was complete then; DigDat confidently moves from track to track without the need for another MC to match his energy.
The album contains some of his previous singles – “VV”, “Assassin’s Creed”, and “How High” – which were released in anticipation for Pain Built. The album has endured a slow start on the streaming charts thusfar, with the highest non-single track reaching 58k hits on Spotify in just over two days. However, the albums looking to be a sleeper hit, with numerous tracks having the potential to go big as Sounds on TikTok, now a vehicle for drill music these days, for better or worse.
After two years since his last project, DigDat sounds much more laid back than last time we heard him; on “Dottys Cost Jeans”, he spits fast bars but with a casual tone, not needing to spit with the same violence or urgency on previous tracks. He hops on a beat like its too natural, not having too use any vocal gimmicks or shock value, but let his fluency do the talking. Far from the maximalist sound of “Air Force” or “New Dior”, Pain Built has a markedly sparse feel, alternating between melancholy and cold-heartnedness. The album is largely devoid of joy, perhaps relfecting the album title, apart from the track “DigDat” whose beautifully bouncy beat is matched only by the artists bravado.
Even surrounding the albums release, DigDat has kept a low profile; no big interviews, features, or public appearances bar the odd Instagram post. Despite the backing of a big label, and boasting numerous highly popular tracks, DigDat is lacking the public presence of his peers.
