The Brunel Estate is where Bashy had his beginnings. The late 80s, a small flat in the corner of the estate: Bashy and his sister, with his Mum and his Dad, family bloodlines flowing back to Jamaica and Dominica, now rooted here, together, in the heart of West London. His Nan lived a few roads away. She arrived from Jamaica in the fifties as part of the Windrush generation, and then settled. The family tree branched across the city. Bashy is at the tail end of one of these trails. A London boy. A product of West and Northwest London. A product of the Thatcher years. A product of Caribbean roots, community and culture.

His album, Being Poor is Expensive, is a tribute to coming of age in his corner of the city, a young boy becoming a man during a testing and at times dangerous time period. It’s a breath- taking portrait of the roads, homes, trials and tribulations that shaped his generation, and is a moving homage to the many migrations and journeys that came before him. Eleven tracks long, Being Poor is Expensive is more than an album. It is a musically rich Black British origin story from one of the country’s most skilled and respected rappers.

“It feels like a coming of an age story,” he says, “It feels like my origin story. This is where I’m from and how I’ve grown into this person that I am today. It was therapeutic to create. I really had to look deep inside myself and pull from my experiences. Some of it was emotional, some of it took me right back.”

Tracklist:

1. The London Borough of Brent
2. Sweet Boy Turned Sour
3. Being Poor is Expensive
4. On The Rise
5. Blessed (feat. Haile and Skrapz)
6. Made in Britain
7. How Black Men Lose Their Smile
8. Lost in Dreams (feat Roses Gabor)
9. Sticky
10. Earthsong
11. Midnight in Balans