For years, Berwyn Du Bois did not officially exist. Thanks to the “hostile environment” and a lack of correct papers when moving to London from Trinidad aged just nine, the 28-year-old singer-producer was essentially a non-person until recently. While some of us may intellectually understand “without leave to remain”, Berwyn’s debut explains with visceral intensity what life in England without being permitted to live in England means. Musically, Who Am I cuts a prickly path between the experimental rawness of Mercury-nominated mixtape Demotape/Vega and its excellent sequel Tape 2/Fomalhaut’s smoother entreaties.
That said, the album’s centrepiece, Dear Immigration, doesn’t have a note of music. It’s an open letter to the functionaries who tried to stop him coming home after a gig in the Netherlands, devastating for its directness, honesty and dark humour. That kind of rough-tongued poetry is everywhere, painstakingly depicting Berwyn’s constant scrabble for cash and stability, the false but necessary promises of escape offered by intoxication, and that endlessly human desire to belong to something or someone.
Crucially, the ferocity of Berwyn’s talent and the piercing beauty of his crackling, folk-R&B croon mean these heavy topics are never a burden. An inspiring, educational album – it should be on the national curriculum.
