West London’s latest rising star Central Cee releases his debut mixtape Wild West.

At only 22 Central Cee has already had a good run in the music scene leading up to the release of Wild West. Whilst 2020 was definitely his best year commercially and in cementing his name amongst the masses he’s been in and amongst some of the scenes best since 2015. In 2015 we saw him feature on a track with J Hus as well as saw him get a Link Up TV StreetHeat Freestyle but his sound has gone through a few different phases before we got to what we have now. Starting out as more of a traditional lyrical rapper he later moved over to the more melodic wave sound before settling now somewhere closer to Drill.

Spending significant time developing his sound into what it is today it’s no surprise that it took until 2020 for Cee to get his breakthrough and what a breakthrough it’s been. It started in June 2020 with ‘Day In The Life’ which was then followed up with ‘Molly’ and then ‘Loading’ which took things to a whole different level for the Shepherd’s Bush native. ‘Loading’ has recently went silver and his most recent single ‘Commitment Issues’ went into the Top 20 in its first week of release. Both of those singles feature on Wild West as well as previously heard tracks ‘Pinging (6 Figures)’ and the aforementioned ‘Day In The Life’.

Wild West is an interesting body of work, it showcases all of the elements that people love about Central Cee but also includes tasters of some of the others we haven’t seen. Even though it comes in at a substantial 14 tracks the project’s run time is still under 45 minutes making it a project that aims to offer a lot without keeping you in any one aspect for too long. The project provides a few more insights into Central Cee‘s past and personal life and serves to paint a picture of the West London he grew up in as well as the experiences that have come with that.

One thing that shines throughout the project is Cee‘s ability to paint a picture with words and cuts like ‘Ruby’ really show his ability as a storyteller which is not a brush he’s often painted with. Across the entire body of work, whether it’s on turn up tracks or the slower paced ones when he chooses to, Cee throws you into his reality, the Wild West. During those moments, you can feel exactly what it is he’s trying to convey whether you can directly relate to it or not, and the picture isn’t always pretty. This is interesting against the backdrop of some of the more uptempo production but all that really matters is that it works.

It is a project of different acts. Wild West opens with the story of the come up before getting into a middle interlude that touches more on relationships and women finally closing looking towards the future and reflecting on how far Cee has managed to come. It’s well put together and deserves a focussed listen to truly appreciate the effort that’s gone into the mixtape. With this being his debut project it is an extremely solid offering but also shows the potential for Cee to achieve even more than he already has as well as glimpses of what he can offer in the future.