Since his breakthrough in 2005—when he appeared on Kano’s “Typical Me” and dropped his debut, 2000 & Life—the grime MC Ghetts has threaded his genre’s trademark frenetic energy through songs about the increasingly fraught world around him. His career has been a story of persistence. Born Justin Clarke in East London, Ghetts landed in jail while he was still a teenager; after his release, he received fewer commercial looks than some of his contemporaries, despite a string of mixtapes that helped codify grime’s sound. But he continued to evolve, shifting his once pyrotechnic voice into something nimbler. By the time he received major-label backing for 2021’s contemplative Conflict of Interest, he was shading in the character he sketched on seminal grime records like Ghetto Gospel and Freedom of Speech. Any newfound restraint should not be taken as complacency: Conflict of Interest is filled with scenes of street-level peril. “When's the last time man had to hide in bush and silent a ringtone?” he asks on the taunting “Fire and Brimstone”.