When Stormzy sings: humanity, vulnerability, and black masculinity

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Stormzy broke into the mainstream with songs about kicking people in the face with size 12 shoes and telling people to Shut Up. Earlier this year I heard him on BBC Radio 2 (ie: the most mainstream of mainstream radio spaces) singing a heartfelt rendition of ‘Get Here’ by Oleta Adams.

The Stormzy multiverse is clearly operating in a single dimension.

Stormzy’s singing is not a recent feature of his mainstream success. From as far back as his YouTube mixtape days, he’s been warbling away in and amongst all the lyrical warfare, goading his listeners and haters alike over his choice to hit octaves rather than punchlines. In 2020’s ‘Disappointed’, a diss track levelled at the grime veteran (and huge inspiration for Stormzy) Wiley, he stated: They hate when I sing, but give ‘em time, pre-empting the mainstream success that would see him singing ballads in the live lounge only three years later.

As a self-described ‘big black man with a beard’, Stormzy can easily fall into gendered, racial stereotyping. He’s ‘Scary’, as per the title of one song from 2016, playing into an archetype of black masculine threat that has been constructed for centuries. He also goes by the nickname ‘Gunshot Michael’, a self-professed ‘Skengman’: ie someone who is proficient in the realm of firearms, in a patois-derived dialect.

Singing softly has nothing to do with these spiky personas. But Stormzy has never been mono-dimensional. A huge part of his character is his spirituality and reflective nature. Gospel influences run throughout his music, case in point his debut album, oxymoronically entitled Gang Signs and Prayer. He sings to reach a higher place, vocally and spiritually. The 2017 song ‘Blinded By Your Grace Pt 2’ was an early hit that was pure church, parking all the trademark aggression in place of vocal devotion and arms aloft uplift.

Later, songs such as ‘Crown’ in 2019 would continue this trend, inviting us into the vocal range and reflective spaces that Stormzy clearly finds salvage in. 

One of his biggest hits to date, ‘Big For Your Boots’, is an energetic party starter that leads with cartoon violence and unchecked aggression. But in and amongst all the threats, punching and kicking, he drops a reference to singing his heart out at an Adele concert in the O2 arena. It’s a wonderfully subversive moment, forcing the mainstream listener to do a 180 headspin at the thought of this violent black man pouring his heart out alongside one of the greatest ballad singers the UK has ever produced.