Krept & Konan are a South London duo who came up in the UK underground scene as rugged road rappers: Deft and bruising, the pair’s early songs were full of snappy punchlines held together by rough beats. But their 2015 major-label debut, The Long Way Home, primed them for crossover appeal with a clean pop sound and collaborations with Ed Sheeran and DJ Mustard. While the album was a success on the UK charts, it softened the harder edge that, since 2005, they’d carried with pride. Their recently released two-part mixtape, 7 Days and 7 Nights, seeks to find a compromise between their pop inclinations and road rap roots.

One of the project’s highlights is the Stormzy-featuring “Ask Flipz,” a rowdy show of force. Riding a raucous A Dot Skitz beat of simmering synths and aggressive percussion, Krept & Konan trade braggadocious verses about their wider travels (“I met the weed plug in Sweden”) and elevated accommodations (“Now I’m in business class talking about the economy”). Like Krept & Konan, Stormzy is known for his barreling bars, but here he adds a smooth, jovial hook, allowing the duo to mark their territory throughout. They may have gone the long way home, but Krept & Konan are in top form, in that sweet place where mainstream appeal can co-exist alongside the toughest of rap.