Ren

• Sick Boi [The Other Songs, 2023] A

Consumer Guide Reviews:

Sick Boi [The Other Songs, 2023]
Quick-lipped, self-taught Welsh beatmaker-frontman Ren Gill, whose good little Trick the Fox band was put on the injured list by his long battle with Lyme disease and the "constant wrestling with my mental health" that ensued, is "blessed with a silver tongue" as he "navigates the shadow of the valley of sickness," a rapper whose articulated singsong combines startling clarity with polysyllabic vernacularity. Whether he's rhyming "ready to kill" with "mentally ill," "mine," "minor" and "Simon," or Jesse Owens and Leonard Cohen, "helter skelter" with "Alka-Seltzer" or reminding us that "horses don't even have opposable thumbs," he's not so much fun as impressive or maybe just delightful. I don't recall ever hearing anything much like him.' A