UK hip-hop may remain a backwater but the fault cannot be laid at the door of Ben Chijioke, aka Ty. Sterling work for a decade and a Mercury Music Prize nomination mean that he can pull in the likes of Arrested Development and De La Soul yet still fail to get a look-in chartwise at home — as he observes on Hustle (That’s Why We).

Ty is an articulate thinker who avoids random misogyny and braggadocio to rap about the social background to the Damilola Taylor murder case or genocide in Africa. Equally comfortable behind the desk (particularly effective is the lounge jazz production on What You Want) or in front of the mike, he makes mainstream American hip-hop sound as formulaic and vacuous as it really is.

MIKE PATTENDEN