{"id":17668,"date":"2025-07-24T04:23:08","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T04:23:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/17668\/"},"modified":"2025-07-24T04:23:08","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T04:23:08","slug":"jim-legxacy-delivers-a-brilliant-snapshot-of-black-british-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/17668\/","title":{"rendered":"Jim Legxacy Delivers a Brilliant Snapshot of Black British Culture"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tOn \u201c3x,\u201d a standout track from London-based musician Jim Legxacy<\/a>\u2019s new mixtape Black British Music, the 2016 UK rap classic \u201cWanna Know,\u201d by Dave \u2014 who is also featured on the song \u2014 serves as a thematic core. Legxacy\u2019s vocals, sparkling and ethereal, suffused with emotion but never saccharine, give Dave\u2019s iconic hook a new depth. It\u2019s one of multiple references to the track on the tape \u2014 on \u201cd.b.a.b.\u201d Jim coos: \u201cI don\u2019t wanna know like the old Dave,\u201d an easter egg of sorts pointing to a specific cultural lineage.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tLegxacy told Rolling Stone<\/a> earlier this year that the mixtape was an effort to make space for a Black British cultural identity. \u201cA lot of us are technically the first British people in our entire lineage, and that has a huge cultural impact,\u201d he says. \u201cOur identity is still at a point where it\u2019s malleable. We\u2019re figuring out what that is.\u201d Ironically, it was Drake<\/a>, fresh from his feud with Meek Mill<\/a>, who initially brought \u201cWanna Know\u201d across the pond via his remix. Back then, just as it is now, the UK rap scene was gaining popularity in the United States. In flipping the song\u2019s hook, Jim Legxacy presents a kind of reclamation, returning cultural artifacts to their rightful home.<\/p>\n

\n\tThroughout Black British Music, samples are deployed with kaleidoscopic precision. On \u201cStick,\u201d he references Skepta\u2019s \u201cGoing Through It,\u201d on \u201csun\u201d an interpolation of J Hus\u2019 \u201cDid You See,\u201d and elsewhere on \u201cd.b.a.b.,\u201d we hear Legxacy singing Kojo Funds\u2019 2018 single \u201cWarning\u201d (which itself is an interpolation of Snow\u2019s \u201cInformer\u201d). Even when pulling references from American artists \u2014 \u201cNew David Bowie\u201d flips \u201cWash\u201d by Jon Bellion, and Outkast\u2019s \u201cHey Ya\u201d gets interpolated on \u201c06 Wayne Rooney\u201d \u2014 we\u2019re still in decidedly British terrain. Like on his breakout mixtape Homeless N***a Pop Music, Legxacy connects these sonic tendrils in service of a larger vision. As much as the cultural specificity of the Black British experience informs this record, it\u2019s his own life as a Black British youth navigating trauma and loss, as he explains on the album opener \u201cContext,\u201d that lends it weight.<\/p>\n

\t\tEditor\u2019s picks<\/p>\n

\n\tAs a writer, Legxacy\u2019s talents lie in his nimble sense of songcraft. Take \u201cFather,\u201d BBM\u2019s first single, and a solid contender for the song of the summer. In roughly ninety seconds, we\u2019re given a robust narrative arc\u2014the multi-pronged trauma of an absent father and its ripple effects on romance \u2014 unspooling over a vibrant jerk-inspired beat. On the cheekily titled \u201cI just banged a snus in canada water,\u201d he\u2019s effectively pumping himself up in the mirror, growling the hook, \u201cI can\u2019t let them do me like they did me as a kid,\u201d which itself manages to carry within it a world of meaning. The track rolls along a sticky piano melody and marauding trap drums that drive the message home.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\t\tTrending Stories<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cSOS,\u201d the mixtape\u2019s most obvious hit, is where Jim Legxacy\u2019s sound coalesces. Opening with a sample flip of Case\u2019s R&B classic \u201cMissing You,\u201d Jim deploys sonic signatures with an instinctive flair, like a DJ guided solely by their mood. On \u201ctiger driver \u201891\u201d he\u2019s in vintage Jim Legxacy terrain. The song is reminiscent of \u201cAndromeda,\u201d from his 2021 mixtape Citadel, replete with the punchy acrobatic flow of British battle rap. Except, in the four years since Citadel, Legxacy\u2019s life has clearly transformed. There\u2019s a heavier sensibility to the song, a feeling that lingers beneath the surface of Black British Music. On \u201cContext,\u201d he lays out the past few years of his life, during which he lost his younger sister and watched as his mother and brother went through their own health battles. Where many artists have recently taken to expressing challenges with mental health in their music, BBM achieves something more sensory. \u201cI wanted to show what it felt like when it caught up to me,\u201d he says on \u201cContext.\u201d \u201cBut I also wanted to show the bullshit of me distractin\u2019 myself too.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tBlack British Music succeeds in expressing something deeply personal. The sound of hospital vital monitors on album closer \u201cbrief,\u201d like the flurry of samples throughout the record, strike a singular emotional frequency. Like Nas\u2019s Illmatic, Black British Music paints a portrait of a young artist as informed by their heart as their surroundings. While Legxacy feels like \u201cthere\u2019s always gonna be mud,\u201d as he says on \u201cContext,\u201d his latest mixtape is remarkably hopeful.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On \u201c3x,\u201d a standout track from London-based musician Jim Legxacy\u2019s new mixtape Black British Music, the 2016 UK…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":17669,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[64,63,2905,134,18826,18827,136],"class_list":{"0":"post-17668","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-drake","11":"tag-entertainment","12":"tag-jim-legxacy","13":"tag-meek-mill","14":"tag-music"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17668"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17668\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}