No Lay is back with her first release of 2012! The Grime veteran was part of the collective Unorthodox when she first burst onto the scene – ‘No Help or Handouts’ being the Grime collectives most well known track.
The South London MC flooded the urban industry with music last year as she delivered four or five releases, completely destroyed Birmingham's OG Nicky and featured on a couple tracks including ‘Goonz’ by Marger.
The 2012 OMA nominee seems to be starting this year the same way she ended 2011, already releasing ‘Rebellion and appearing in a few visuals including English Frank’s Southside Connection
Prior to the EP, No Lay AKA Isabella Gotti dropped a ‘Fire in the Booth’ for Radio 1Xtra DJ Charlie Sloth, a ‘Behind Bars’ for Link Up TV, a ‘Spotlight’ freestyle for Street Starz TV and a ‘Daily Duppy’ for Grime Daily.’ No Lay’s ‘Behind Bars’ really stuck out to me - giving me goose bumps as she let us into her life a little more – giving us a little insight into her life and her thoughts on music while ripping through the instrumental with her
Rebellion is a twelve track EP with six songs and six bonus tracks, which include the very impressive ‘Behind Bars’ freestyle I mentioned earlier. There’s even a Drum & Bass remix of Drugs on the EP for a different feel of the song which was included on her ‘He Said She Said’ EP which was released on iTunes last year. The isn’t one feature on any of the tracks included in the EP showing that No Lay has a lot to say and lyrically capable of holding her own, however, I do believe if there were one or two features – they would compliment one or two of the songs rather then taking away anything. In my opinion, No Lay adding her singing vocals here and there definitely added a different element of the Grime artist into the mix.
The EP begins with ‘Blowing Out Ya Home’ which sets the tone for the rest of the CD - with mad wordplay and No Lays infamous flows and delivery - that grabbed my attention from the get go. ‘Rebellion’ is an example of No Lay at her rawest, with flows and unforgiving lyrics. From start to finish, she does not let up, no gimmicks, no poppy sing-along type songs and refreshing honesty.
Stand out tracks include:
‘Behind Bars Link Up TV - Unfinished Sympathy’
‘Blowing Out Ya Home’
‘Oh Yeah’
‘Isabella Gotti Got It!’
‘Make It’
‘Goodbye’
9/10
Review by @TheRealTevynJ
