Spotify have just released the first episode of ‘Decode’, a new podcast hosted by Kayo Chingonyi that is dedicated to the close analysis of great British albums. The first series will cover Dave’s Mercury Prize-winning 2019 debut ‘PSYCHODRAMA’.
The new podcast is an offshoot of ‘Dissect’, an American podcast that is similarly concerned with unpacking albums. Whilst ‘Decode’ will concern itself entirely with British musical projects, ‘Dissect’ focusses on albums by artists from the US. Eight series in, the original podcast has explored Kendrick Lamar’s ‘To Pimp a Butterfly’, Beyonce’s ‘Lemonade’, and many more.
As one of the most high-profile UK hip-hop albums of the last decade, it is unsurprising that ‘PSYCHODRAMA’ has been selected as the first album to be analysed in this new British series. Following the narrative of a therapy session, the concept album is punctuated by spoken word interludes from Dave’s “therapist”, played by Fraser T. Smith. The project is wildly ambitious and epic in its scope, as Dave wrestles with childhood trauma, domestic abuse, institutional racism, and mental health issues.
The man tasked with giving listeners a track-by-track breakdown of this extremely dense album is Kayo Chingonyi. The critically acclaimed Zambian-British poet said of Dave’s debut LP in a press release: “To me, the album connects with Britain’s long history of colonialism and in particular the effects of this on Black people, specifically, and immigrants to the UK more generally. The ways that institutions treat people. I feel like there’s a deep connection between this album and those issues. The renewed questions that people have been asking of institutions like the police force in the last few years are the questions Dave is wrestling with on this album.”
He added, “I feel like Decode offers an insight into how Dave’s kind of lyricism works on an album like Psychodrama because we talk about how skilful he is with words not just to tell a story but as a way of revelling in the musicality of language for its own sake… It was fun to talk about those poetic flourishes and how, in a very intentional way, Dave fashions a vivid portrait of life’s lowest lows and highest highs.”
As Chingonyi notes, ‘PSYCHODRAMA’ is intimately connected with the effects of institutional racism. In particular, ‘Black’ is a track that not only explores the Black British experience but considers the black identity in terms of the entire African diaspora. Dave raps, “Black is so much deeper than just African-American/ Our heritage been severed, you never got to experiment/ With family trees, ’cause they teach you ’bout famine and greed/ And show you pictures of our fam on their knees.”
Listening to ‘PSYCHODRAMA’ is often like going to the classroom to be taught, but the difference is that Dave is teaching you what you were not taught – that is the point.
Listen to Decode’s first episode covering the album’s opening track ‘Psycho’ below:
