‘Year of the Real’ is one of the most surprising but big collaborations in a while.

Manchester, Birmingham, London, and Coventry all linked up for ‘Year of the Real’. More impressive than even getting all of those areas to link up on a single track is the artists that repped for each city. Meekz, M1llionz, Teeway, and PA Salieu are all arguably the most exciting names in their cities within their respective genres. M1llionz and PA Salieu are currently on runs that would make any aspiring artists think anything is possible. M1llionz ‘HDC’ has been all over radio, playlists, and been racking up views and streams. PA Salieu equally has been a name on plenty of lips after dropping his track ‘Frontline’ which garnered him comparisons to J Hus.

Beyond the spectacle of such an impressive line up is a great track. MKThePlug and Sapphire Beatsz provide the patented menacing drill sound that everyone associates with the genre. This provides a great base for all of the artists to have the chance at shining on the track. Some shined more than others on this over the 6-minute long marathon of a track.

The names alone were impressive but the standard on the track lives up to the hype of the names. Meekz kicks things off and almost instantly sets the levels, although I think he had harder bars than the one he chose to get wheeled up on. M1llionz delivered as expected and maintains the high levels. Teeway was the real surprise of the track for me. Whilst Teeway wasn’t a name on everyone’s lips at the moment, he is a name in drill whose talent is apparent he just lacks some consistency. On ‘Year of the Real’ Teeway performs at a level I personally haven’t heard from him before and he stamped down with authority why he was the name called up from London.

Well, let’s be honest PA Salieu is not a drill artist so him being on the beat was intriguing before we even got to his verse. His entry on the beat would fool you that he was a drill artist. This then quickly unravels and you can hear that his style doesn’t fit the drill setting. He admirably does stick to his own flow rather than opting to mimic one of the more popular and established flows to suit the beat. Whilst his style is in conflict with the drill sound, he tackles the genres key tropes throughout his verse. Additionally, it is nice to see that he did try to keep his verse interesting with plenty of flow switches. But in the end, unfortunately for him, he still had the weakest verse on the track.

All in all ‘Year of the Real’ is a very good track for what it is. The one criticism I’d have of the track as a whole is the length of the verses, they all felt too long regardless of how good they were. Despite this, however, the fact that each artist delivered solid verses that stood up to the weight the tracks title alone are testament to the artists’ talents. It was a big link-up and a huge look to start off the year and it will be interesting to see how each artist’s 2020 goes forward.

You can stream ‘Year of the Real’ here.