Sway - This is My Promo, Volume 1 and 2

Sway - This is My Promo Vol. 1 – Dcypha Alliance/All City Music – 2005

I was recommended Sway by a friend recently after my recent introduction (and subsequent obsession) to grime and UK hip hop. On top of that, I was also informed that he is the fastest UK hip hop artist; I don’t know how much truth that holds, but after listening to the record, I wouldn’t be surprised. After seeing a pretty cheap deal on a couple of his CD's I took a chance on him.

This is My Promo is a predecessor to his official release, This is My Demo, and was made to hype the latter CD and also used to release tracks such as covers and freestyles that might have been lost to a few people’s tape collections.

This is a double disc CD, and has 46 tracks, so I’ll pick out a couple of awesome tracks, and speak pretty generally about the rest of the CD, as well as anything that is particularly funny; cause trust me, Sway is hilarious, and very clever about it.

The artwork for this record is plain and simple, like most of Sway’s releases. What it comes down to is Sway posing in a new era cap and wearing a bandanna, "looking dizope". The booklet gives the necessary information, such as recording details etc... It is not much to talk about.

Album kicks off with a pretty typical shout style vibe intro, but hits a total gloomy grime track, that disappointingly only has like a minute and a half of rapping. However, that minute and a half is tight, awesome flow, with some clever fast parts, and some amazing tongue twister lines.

Flo’ Fashion is an awesome track that has an awesome beat, and when you actually listen to the story behind the lyrics is pretty hilarious. He seems to be talking about how he acts rich by using credit cards, and in turn impresses girls and appears fashionable by buying cars and new clothes etc... In return for this, bailiffs come round and take all his stuff away, and all the girls who used to like him think he’s crap again. Like all his tracks the song is filled with some pretty clever tongue-twister lines. The end of this track features a one minute freestyle, which needs to be heard.

Another stand out track is Up Your Speed. This track is one of many that highlight how fast a rapper Sway actually is. The rapping in this track is awesome, and the beat is also tight. Around the one minute fifteen seconds mark has some insanely fast vocals. The reason I picked this track is that the song itself is awesome, nice beatz!

This album is filled to the brim with diss’s. He has amusingly reworked tracks like Tipsy (changing the chorus to “everyone in the club drink Pepsi”), and has a song that is meant to be a collaboration with Usher, but it is just a wind up.

There is a freestyle track over Nas’s Thiefs Theme that has some of the most hilarious diss’s I have heard in my life – “Yesterday the doctor diagnosed me Illmatic, it was written on my prescription that I am blind” and “I went down to Queens Bridge and saw Nas and his fellas. I’m trying to distract him ‘look there’s Rockafellas’, while me and SAS are trying to get away with Kelis”.

Sway has an amazing flow, and his speed on some parts is fantastic. His lyrics are clever, cheeky, littered with hidden meanings and then as if to make sure people get it, filled with shout outs and blatant diss’s. Some of Sway’s beats are too tame for my liking, and because there are so many tracks, it is easy to overlook some tunes, but generally, this record is fantastic.

Stand out tracks include (however there are many more…) -

This is My Promo
Up Your Speed
What is 5th Element?
Feat. Sway (Mix 2)
Bangsh
Slo Down
Photographer
Sway Mix 4

For a more concise Sway album, get This is My Demo, it is pretty widely available throughout the U.K. and features some of the best tracks from this CD.

www.myspace.com/swaydasafo