Since she first pricked up ears with her impish flow and shadowy beats four years ago, 28-year-old south Londoner Flohio has always given the impression of being an outsider in the UK’s rap movement. Her route to fame has, rather unusually, been through left-field electronica. She appears to address this on her new mixtape (which is essentially a debut album) with Roundtown, on which she sings: “I’ve been around town/ For a second, going ham now/ See me rollin’, tryna get my balance right.”
No Panic No Pain certainly suggests she’s found her lane: it’s a seething statement of intent, with her jugular-chopping, sometimes sullen delivery set to sinister, cavernous instrumentals and the familiar eerie synths of 70s horror films. Tracks such as Boobytraps, With Ease and the Cadenza-produced Sweet Flaws barely let up. The result risks being oppressive, Flohio’s staccato flow smacking like heavy rain, but there are less antsy moments too, as on Flash, where she boasts of being reckless against a stunning fluoro backdrop that rushes like a video game.
She sounds less confident on the songs outside her heated comfort zone, which is unfortunate in a rap game obsessed with versatility. But, as Flohio says on Unveiled, her mode is “more hype, more rage”. That singular vision is finally paying off.
