Album Review

Akira The Don featuring Gruff Rhys – We Won’t Be Broke Forever Baby

• 14th Mar 2012

The latest single from our fair isle’s unlikeliest pop star features a sample lifted from 80’s duo Dollar, a guest vocal from Super Furry Animals’ Gruff Rhys, and expresses a desire to obtain a solid gold house to live in, all the while Akira The Don is using the power of music to tap into the metaphysical, whilst also causing toes to tap.

The song itself is a pure delight, from it’s slow soulful beginnings, past the midway change-up to an upbeat rocking beat replete with breakneck rapping, right through to the laddish closing chant of ‘we won’t be broke’ repeated over that must have The Enemy wondering how they didn’t think of it first.

A closer inspection of the lyrics reveals an autobiographical tale of working menial jobs and trying to make ends meet that is easily related to (apart from maybe the part about the record deal), and the chorus revels in the kind of hope and promise that should even have those with bank balances firmly in the red humming along regardless.

And that is where the true magic lies, Akira The Don himself admits that the song is a sigil, a focused incantation that is clear in its desired outcome to accumulate wealth, and as such it should be shared far and wide and truly believed in for the magic to work for us all.

And when magical sigils are this catchy, I don’t see why it shouldn’t.