Home Sweet Home

iTunes Review

While the Internet may be abuzz with critical blathering heralding the likes of Diplo and M.I.A. as the architects of a new genre and culture-mashing style of club music, U.K. artists such as the London-born Kano have been quietly forging a revolutionary new style of club music, derived from Grime and Garage but not beholden to its narrow stylistic template, that manages to authentically fuse dubstep, ragga, American hip-hop and a smattering of other genres. Diplo himself contributes the beat to the frenetic “Reloaded,” but the tracks' A.D.D.-addled breakbeats and video game synths sound cluttered next to the spare, skeletal elegance on display on the rest of Home Sweet Home. In the end Kano, with his suave, slicker-than-thou braggadocio and his exemplary taste in producers stands out from his contemporaries because he wants nothing to do with the pop charts and is content to skillfully rep his East London neighborhood the best he knows how. Ultimately it’s the refreshing directness of Kano’s intent, free of political grandstanding and glittering club friendly refrains, that makes Home Sweet Home sound as exhilarating as early Rakim, and as pure as vintage KRS-One.