
‘Fredo! Fredo!” chant the Leeds massive at a rapper who looks understandably overwhelmed. In 2016, he was on remand in prison, unaware that his first track, They Ain’t 100, was being championed by the Canadian superstar Drake and had become a viral sensation. The charges were dropped before reaching court, and after appearing on the rapper Dave’s 2018 No 1, Funky Friday, and his own Top 5 mixtape, Tables Turn, the 23-year-old trap/road-rap artist is packing out houses.
The stage set is a mocked-up Third Avenue – the street in west London’s Mozart estate, where Fredo (Marvin Bailey to the legal system and his mother) grew up amid chronic child poverty. Third Avenue is now the title of his debut album and the lyrics describe how he got from there to here: a difficult, though not unique, passage from childhood drug-dealing to glitzy shopping trips and apologies to mum.
If the sight of a topless, muscular rapper spitting such lyrics can feel a bit too familiar, his words are real, raw and, at best, insightful. It’s certainly hard to remain unmoved by The Avenues, which relays the fates of childhood friends with soulful detail (“he just lost his little bro, and straight after that the feds locked him in a hole”). He’ll perhaps need a more balanced blend of reflection, originality and crowd-pleasing bangers. Still, he has a female DJ (“Tiffany – the hottest in the country”) in a male-dominated scene, and the duo perform They Ain’t 100 to crowd euphoria. “I love you all,” he splutters, a man seizing an escape route with both hands.
At 02 Academy, Bournemouth, 4 March. Then touring.
