“‘I had to focus on growth, you know,” confides Irving Adjei early into Music X Road, his latest mixtape as drill hopeful Headie One. It’s a message, delivered with quiet reflection over gospel keys on the tape’s tender title track, that grows more resonant with each song that follows. Music X Road, his sixth mixtape since 2014 debut Headz or Tails, is an artist evolution documenting a personal one”
“On his diverse, Technicolor new mixtape, Headie One insists, “They say that I’m the king of drill / I’m doing it all”. The line crops up on ‘Both’, a track that was playlisted on Radio One and – brilliantly and unexpectedly – samples Ultra Naté’s 1998 dance anthem ‘Free’. These aren’t necessarily the credentials you’d associate with an artist formerly defined by the drill scene, but the north Lond”
