Track Review | Hen House | Louis the Hippie
BBC championed, Dagenham-born artist Louis the Hippie collaborates with Hackney label/collective ROOT 73 for the most recent and exciting stage of his development. The fruit of this alliance is the release of his first official single, Hen House, with impending EP ‘Kill The Shepherd’ soon to follow.
It remains to be seen whether the farmyard motif will continue. And yet, while tinged with energetic humour, there is a hint of Orwellian uprising at play here.
Louis’ background is immediately striking. His home town is the only area in the country which voted overwhelmingly to leave the EU, while Labour simultaneously retained their seat in local government. From this contradiction steps a self-proclaimed creative and public ventor (plus, of course, hippie) that ‘took his shoes off in no. 10’. It appears clear that a streak of rebellion courses through him.
The main arena of the music video is a monochrome hellscape of broken windows and derelict towers, recalling the council estate aesthetic of Slowthai’s debut, or this Arctic Monkeys offering from way back when. In stark contrast to his grim locale, Louis emerges clean cut, bouncing flamboyantly in skinny jeans and a bomber jacket. In an alternative thread, he dons a flat cap and spectacles, sipping tea with his pinky raised. He completely undercuts what’s expected of him, and it’s captivating.
That’s not to say that he’s uncomfortable with the harder stuff. The jangly beat packs some oomph, with the odd bassy break visually punctuated by his energetic manoeuvres. His considered flow is deliberately restrained, dragging emphasis out of straightforward but potent rhymes. One gets the sense that he could switch it up at any point, and on that note we’ll be waiting patiently for the EP.
While the lyrics aren’t always focused on a particular theme, the well-trodden temptations and dangers of a hustling mentality crop up repeatedly, ‘Bank account needs balancing, money-making managing, not moving like a mannequin’. But again, Louis seems to use humour to distance himself from this seduction, ‘Bruddas in your town get the grams in…man I think they think I’m speaking Mand-rin’.
And this is a microcosm of what Louis the Hippie represents. In a UK hip hop/grime scene dominated by badboy credentials and aloofness towards commercial-viability, he isn’t concerned with posturing. Instead, he arrives with the fearless panache of somebody who’s confident in their skillset, and aware that they’re rocking an incredible headband.
We’ll definitely be keeping our ears open for ‘Kill the Shepherd’, dropping in June.
