To describe Slowthai’s new song “Drug Dealer” as “dark” would be an understatement. The beat the Northampton rapper spits over is tense, almost hair-raising with its prickly string crescendos, stern horn blasts, and caffeinated drum fills. And he is unsparing in the depiction of the world around him, from the blight-stricken English countryside to the violence of the cities’ council houses.

The 23-year-old Slowthai has made a name for himself with barreling, punkish grime music, and “Drug Dealer” is his most intense song to date. It’s political (“Nothing great about fucking Britain”), anguished (“Cause I'm feeling pain/Traveled the country, hundreds of trains”), and even darkly funny (“Just a drug dealer/Got one song it's called ‘Drug Dealer’”). He weaves this bleak tale in a voice that is simultaneously droll and angry—as if he’s relating back to us something so routine, its tedium is making his blood boil. Slowthai has proven he’s among England’s most fascinating rappers, and with “Drug Dealer,” he raises the stakes.