Ill Manors says if you stereotype people as socially worthless then they will grow into those stereotypes. “Think you know how life on a council estate is from everything you’ve ever read about it or heard?” he asks. You expect a rebuttal, but instead: “Well it’s all true, so stay where you’re safest there’s no need to step foot out the ‘burbs.” Drew writes best about being cornered – even his hit album is about a soul singer in jail – and here, playing a non-famous version of himself, he’s cornered by prejudices he finds easier to confirm than overcome. Every rapid-fire verse accelerates with increasing desperation towards the same illicitly exciting chorus: “Oi! I said oi! What you looking at, you little rich boy?” The mingling of despair and defensive pride recalls A Design for Life’s chorus: “We don’t talk about love, we only want to get drunk.
If Steve Harris could move just a tiiiiiny bit to his left, you would see me in this picture.
