Cappo’s greatest attribute as one of the UK’s most individual rhymers has always been making statements that stick after delivering them with a seeming flippancy, laying shit on the line when wandering outside the rigidity of verse and line structures. Not quite guerrilla poetry, but never far off Nottingham agenda setting in unshakeable focus of conscience streams.
Name-checking without gimmicks, from Brian Clough to Jack Nicholson, Sir Bobby Robson to Charlie Sheen, Yuri Gagarin to Brian Wilson and John Higgins (“nothing but century breaks”) - all referenced with a stone-jawed delivery - there’s not a great degree of difference between Cappo’s off-the-top Live Intro and his mission statement of there being a right and a wrong way to do things. His put-downs continue to make opponents step back a moment to work out how they’ve been taken down a peg, kinda like a delayed reaction of landing a winding blow that takes a short while before the incumbent is bent double struggling for breath. Cappo may claim to “need that morbidly obese currency” like the rest of us, but he won’t “dilute and divert from my planned route”, going for self without the assistance of the P Brothers on the boards (it’s okay to feel a little aggrieved and even sceptical about this) but showing similar ability to kick black holes in drum kits, and only calling on Styly Cee for cuts and sample sneaks.
Imposingly grand show-n-prover Complete Faith implies molten lava to bring down a sky full of aeroplanes, and creating an ill-omened sequel to the vanquishing Gilgamesh, where strings form storm clouds and demons exhale forebodingly out back, Cappo’s stealing of breath is a great threat. As if to say, I’m not gonna hit you, but the way I’m drawing back my arm should be indication that your nose will be all over your face next. Extended connection is made on the torching Fire with Fire, orchestral horns and drawn-out boom bap ripping chunks out of Hollywood blockbuster strings to turn the mood Hitchcockian (another namecheck), Cappo reeling off line after line of immobilising technique.
Mixing auras of mythical one-man dynasty and cut-above street patrol, Cappo sends foes to the lions from beneath a low-pulled brim hiding a laurel wreath. Over the piano looped affirmations of Loyalty, you’re left in no doubt that he will always finish whatever task he undertakes as a natural born general and leader amongst men, as much as Magna Carta demonstrates a need to achieve through any hustle necessary.
Intensive from first to last, the only waggle room is marked between ‘very’ and ‘not so much but still ardent’: the compellingly concluded Re-Cap; the title track, which would bless any US mixtape; and Turns & Twists offering better-than-most insight into which cogs whir inside the man. Disciplined in self-testing, “speak of my name in vain again and catch this Macbeth syndrome” puts C in an oblique bracket of orators previously never given thought to. “Respect my thousand corpses, I gallop with the wildest horses/my tour-de-force talk is impenetrable/amicable, I'm Amityville, escorted on tour by minotaurs” will make those of few grey cells retreat with a migraine. And “paint a picture like Pablo, a Ready Brek glow on any cold unforgiving scene” is Cappo doing bread and butter keeping it real. All hail once again.