Album Review: The Boy Who Played the Harp by Dave

Dave’s third album trades the high‑stakes bravado of his earlier work for a quieter reckoning. It feels like watching a gifted storyteller learn to sit with faith, grief, and masculine complicity.

Courtesy of Dave / Neighbourhood Recordings.

You meet Dave mid‑sentence here. He is talking to himself more than anyone, flipping through memories and hypotheticals as if there is somebody in the room holding his hand. The opener “History” is almost a feint, with James Blake lifting his voice into a dreamy gospel hook while Dave recalls an angel telling him he’s “destined to some shit you would never believe.” Beneath the bravado, “for the bass and the treble, I triple the fee” and rhyming “my car eco‑aggressive” with “my ego aggressive,” you can hear a man talking into a mirror. His life after We’re All Alone in This Together has been awards, number‑one singles, and talk‑show smiles; the subtext of this record is how little those things matter when the nights are long. The piano arrangement opens up around him (and an uptempo beat), which is a sign of what’s to come. The soundscape leans cinematic but seldom flashy; there are pregnant pauses where the only sound is the click of a pianist’s pedal or the rustle of a vocal layering inhaling. Silence, here, does more work than any hi‑hat.

From the jump, Dave appears exhausted by his own myth. “175 Months” is his most explicit prayer yet, not a rote invocation but a drunken confession. He admits he hasn’t “prayed” in years and hasn’t been to church “in even longer.” He remembers Abdullah, a friend who died at sixteen, frozen in time while everyone else ages: “It’s his twenty‑seventh birthday, and in his pic, he’s fourteen.” The writing lands like a gut punch; after years of rapping about systemic injustice, he is now naming friends and counting their birthdays. He confesses to ignoring his mother’s prayers, lying to the children of a friend with cancer, and attending church while more worried about his phone’s service. There is no hook to release the tension; instead, the song drifts into an outro where the sampled voices hum and a composition hesitates, as if waiting for him to exhale. It’s a piece of spiritual diary writing dressed up as a pop song, and it is astonishing.

That sense of grappling with faith and violence runs through “No Weapons,” a rare moment of uptempo relief featuring Nigerian‑British singer Jim Legxacy. The chorus is a paraphrase of Isaiah 54:17, “No weapon that’s been flashed against me shall prosper,” sung as if in a street‑corner revival. Dave punctures the piety with cheeky asides about luxury (“hand ting in a LV, speedy … she got a BBL, if I put that chick on a BMX, now she’ll wheelie”). The biblical promise rubs against the mundanity of South London risk; a bubbly beat buoys the track, yet Dave’s verses undercut the uplift with vivid images of police cordons on his estate and the memory of shopping in Lost & Found because his mother couldn’t afford new clothes. The tension between church language and street reality creates a complex mood; if one line lands awkwardly, it’s the juvenile brag about the Clermont twins, which feels out of place next to prayers for prosperity and protection. It shows us that Dave, for all his wisdom, still indulges in juvenile fantasy.

“Chapter 16,” with grime legend Kano, is the album’s heart. It’s presented as a conversation across generations: Dave asks, “Where do you want a fifty-second floor just to take the piss?” and confesses that he studied Kano “since I was fourteen.” Kano answers like an older brother: “You’ve got a lot of years ahead of you, some years are worse of you and some are better you.” He warns that envy is inevitable and urges Dave to “keep a piece of yourself when you’re selling you.” The production swells behind them with beautiful piano chords and a smooth backdrop; there are some programmed hi‑hats, just the shuffle of brushes, and the occasional percussive accent. It sounds like a staged documentary rather than a rap battle; both men leave space for each other’s words. The song is a masterclass in intergenerational mentorship disguised as a hip-hop track.

The record’s romantic centre comes from “Raindance.” Over the usual Afrobeats vibe, Dave flirts, apologizes, and projects. He recounts meeting a woman at the bar, “You was in a bad mood from we stepped in … though you checked out ‘fore we even checked in,” and tries to make her laugh with fashion jokes: “This ain’t Gucci, this is Prada, darling; if you want somethin’ you can ask me, darling.” Tems glides through the song singing “Sway my mind, falling away … you’re where I wanna be.” The track’s first half feels sweet and patient, but when Dave flips into focus mode to list ring sizes and property transfers, “Your finger, I can put a rock in it … Banker, they can put a block in it,” the mood breaks. His wordplay is nimble, but the run of internal rhymes is more clever than heartfelt; the track doesn’t earn its length. Tems, however, provides warmth that Dave’s vocals can’t supply alone. It highlights a running theme: he is more comfortable articulating structural injustice than reciprocating intimacy.

“Selfish” doubles down on that discomfort. James Blake returns behind the boards and on the hook, leaving Dave to interrogate the costs of his ambition. He wonders, “What if the reason they call me ‘The Greatest’ is also the reason that me and you live on different pages?” and confesses his fear that his attempts at closeness push his partner away. It’s messy and often beautiful; the bridge (“What if it’s better with me out the way? … what if I’m poison? what if I’m cancer?”) is delivered in a cracked falsetto over a choir of Blake’s layered harmonies. If Dave sometimes gestures toward self‑examination without fully committing, Blake’s production ensures that we feel the weight of the question.

Everything leads to “Fairchild,” the album’s moral fulcrum. It begins innocuously: “She was twenty‑four … told me something you can’t be ready for.” Dave recounts sending a younger woman to a no‑phone party where the men had phones and the women didn’t. When the driver makes her uncomfortable, he shrugs it off. The story slowly morphs from anecdote to indictment. Tamara (the woman from “Lesley” on Psychodrama) narrates a harrowing night: a man drugs her, hovers over her, and follows her up a hill. She runs, trips, and feels hands pulling her hair as she screams to stop. Her keys become a weapon when she throws them in his face. The detail is clinical; there is no hook, just a series of breathless verses that explain how women hold their phones to their ears while pretending to talk so they can appear connected. Dave interrupts only to reflect on his complicity: “Am I one of them? The men of the past who catcalled while smokin’ the bars; I’m complicit, no better than you.” He admits that rapping about women in a way that objectifies them is part of the problem. His voice is shaken, almost swallowed by the strings. The song is not just a cautionary tale but a confrontation: either you are part of the solution or part of the problem. For an artist who built his career telling stories of other people’s trauma, the risk here is personal; he implicates himself directly. The shift to first‑person is perhaps the album’s bravest moment.

The title track closes the album and doubles as a thesis statement. Over a piano and a vocal sample, Dave wonders what he would do “in a next generation.” He imagines himself in 1940, 1960, or 1912 and asks whether he would have fought for justice or chosen survival. The references range from the Battle of Karbala to the sinking of the Titanic and Nelson Mandela’s imprisonment. He criticises global hypocrisy: he once feared the Taliban but now is “afraid of a shadow ban” because speaking up about illegal settlements could hurt his career. The verse is dizzying and messy, interweaving personal cowardice (“I sometimes wonder what would I do in a next generation?”) with political critique. The song’s closing lines show him conversing with his ancestors; they remind him that every generation feels powerless but must fight anyway. He takes up Kano’s torch: “Man wanna speak on the scene, but I seen it; tried in the fire by Ghetts, I’m anointed.” The harp becomes a metaphor for the microphone: a tool of art that can replace the sword. In that sense, the album’s weight and quiet make sense. He isn’t rapping to dominate a beat but to ask what courage looks like when your only weapon is a song.

The Boy Who Played the Harp feels heavier and quieter than anything Dave has made. James Blake’s arrangements emphasize empty space; Tems brings warmth; Kano offers a mentor’s calm; Jim Legxacy’s melodic instincts echo in the corners. There is still bravado, but it often reads as a defense mechanism rather than a mission statement. The writing is mostly sharp and unflinching, with it occasionally lapsing into clumsy bragging or filler, but the peaks are among the strongest of his career. “175 Months” turns a prayer into rap theater; “Fairchild” confronts gendered violence with brutal clarity; “Chapter 16” is a rare intergenerational dialogue; and the titular track forces a celebrated artist to reckon with his own fear of speaking up.

Standout (★★★★½)

Favorite Track(s): “175 Months,” “Chapter 16,” “Fairchild,” “The Boy Who Played the Harp”