★★★☆☆
Not a compilation giving a chance to MCs to run their mouth — and they’d be hard pressed to make words stick here anyhow — it’s the turn of producer overlords and instrumental heavies to pull up and create chaos. From beat one, roughneck enterprise creates pixelated nightmares (Youngstar) raked with too-hot-to-handle bassline gunfire, unwieldy brute force that makes any silence deathly, and realises epic high speed chases (J Beatz) or predatory games of off-future hide and seek. All the while keeping alive a DIY ethic that magnifies the bedroom studio setup to a monstrous scale.
The 2.0 could be code for a form of trap and the creation of a transatlantic bridge, making music for low riders that breathe fire and showing opportunism with Tre Mission putting Rihanna through the blender, Faze Miyake and the bewitching Mr Mitch dropping down low, and TRC giving a footwork shout-out as momentary remission. Despite the unofficially cosmopolitan aspect of the compilation, putting on international acts that vouch for the scene’s expansion, very British mannerisms remain — handclap rhythms (Decibel’s “Bend” sounds almost outdated), faux brass wobbles, synth-played string plucks, percussion sourced from everyday electronics, and the spraying of well-worn dub effects and tubular lasers. There are moments of 8-bar bluster and low-rent grinding that are uninspired, monotonous, uninventive even, but to approach this 35-tracker unprepared or undercooked would be foolish.
File under: Ruff Sqwad, Terror Danjah, Agent X