Psychodrama

Product Information

Confession and self-reflection may be nothing new in rap, but they’ve rarely been done with such skill and imagination. The rapper has taken his time over the release, building a vivid, unique voice across a flurry of releases that have gained more than 600 million streams. I was in the middle of working on Stormzy’s Gang Signs and Prayer album and my friends Jack Foster and Benny Scarrs who manage Dave introduced us. Regarding the recording process for Psychodrama, Smith said, "I never want to repeat myself creatively, and was wary about replicating the unique processes and dynamics which had made my working relationships with Kano and Stormzy so special, but Dave is a one off – namely because our music comes from jamming in the studio. It encompasses a record label, pressing plant and online magazine, and collaborates with artists and musicians to create stunning audio-visual shows.

Coinciding with the album's release, Dave released another single, "Streatham" on 7 March, via a music video. The album also entered the US Charts and peaked at number 41 on the Billboard Hot 100 on the 7th of July 2019. The overarching theme was to document Dave’s life up to this point in terms of his upbringing, his life in South London as a young black male, the struggles, the joys, the uncertainty, the ambitions, hopes and fears. Expanding on the Baroque influences on the album, Smith said, "We knew from the beginning that we’d be drawing from a very wide musical palette of strings, brass, harps, and hard-hitting drums and synths. PSYCHODRAMA is the highly anticipated debut studio album from Streatham, South London MC, Dave, and follows the rapper’s 2017 Game Over EP.Dave, himself, collected the GQ Men of the Year Award for Breakthrough Music Act and was also nominated overseas for a BET Award for Best International Act. His full length debut on Daptone Records is equal parts raw feeling and elegance and exudes confidence and charm. Dave's Psychodrama debuts at Number 1 in incredibly close Official Albums Chart battle against Foals".

The 11-minute song "Lesley" details the story of a woman going through an abusive relationship; Dave describes the song as "a story about someone suffering a complete loss of character by being with someone that isn’t good for them. He's so in love with finding the depth in art, the kind of depth that resonates, that working harder to achieve it doesn't bother him in the slightest. Packing dense lyricism, poignant introspection, and resonant production into a neatly compiled concept, Dave's debut album is the product of a MC beyond his years, standing firmly among the Godfathers and Made in the Manors as one of the strongest British rap albums of the decade. For Complex, Natty Kasambala wrote that "For a record tackling such heavy subject matter, it's still shockingly listenable and by constantly moving through different paces it holds your interest", praising the album's lyrics, production and Dave's flow. Dave: Psychodrama review – the boldest and best British rap album in a generation - Alexis Petridis's album of the week".

Manon Grandjean, my long-standing engineer, beautifully captured Dave’s piano, guitars, drums and vocals at my studio in Fulham. Dave has said much of the inspiration for the album came from his older brother, Christopher, who is serving life in prison.

A routinely great artist, much of Sufjan's universal appeal comes from his skills as a gifted narrator, pairing personal musings on love and devotion with commentary on American culture, whilst welding folk and electronica, the ambient and existential. We wrote "Picture Me" during that session and the relationship developed into us working together on Dave's first and second EPs 6 Paths, and Game Over. Psychodrama has been referred to as a "concept album", and has a three-act structure; act one is defined as "environment", act two "relationships", and act three "social compass". The second single to the album, “Streatham,” was released March 8th, 2019, and the third single “Location” was released June 15th, 2019, with all three songs releasing accompanying music videos as well.Writing on Dave's subject matter versatility Dan-O from Freemusicempire commented "It is exciting to find someone with this much to say on this many subjects while exercising this much versatility but more importantly. Pitched as excerpts from a year-long course of therapy, these 11 songs show the South Londoner examining the human condition and his own complex wiring. Regarding the album's vocals, a Sony C800 microphone was used and tracked through a UTA mic pre, summit TLA 100 compressor and then the UTA Unfairchild compressor. The album’s singles were also certified with “Location” featuring Burna Boy becoming BRIT Certified 2x Platinum, “Black” becoming BRIT Certified Silver, as well as “Streatham” and “Disaster” featuring J Hus both becoming BRIT Certified Gold. But most importantly, it is centred around the tough social conditions that confront black working class youth and mental health issues.

Psychodrama debuted at number one on the UK Albums Chart and received widespread acclaim from critics, being hailed by some as one of the best albums of the year. Following the release of Psychodrama, Dave landed the three highest charting new entries on the UK Singles Chart for the week of March 15, with album tracks " Disaster", "Streatham" and " Location", debuting at numbers 8, 9 and 11, respectively. Debut album from the London artist who’s become one of the most important British rappers and this album shows exactly why.The Independent labelled Psychodrama as "one of the most thoughtful, moving and necessary albums of 2019 so far", complimenting the concept and lyrical content: "Tracks are at once astute and deeply personal in how they capture vignettes of everyday life and spin them into important lessons.