Grant Jones“I started my day in NW2
Delivering food direct to your door
You can leave a review like Deliveroo” – Central Cee on “Top Freestyle”
London’s Central Cee kicked off 2025 with his debut album “Can’t Rush Greatness”, and while it has already been a successful release (#1 in the UK, #9 in the United States), it’s an interesting experiment that mirrors the United Kingdom’s current relationship with the US. The UK has long stood in the shadow of its younger, bigger and more popular brother (well, until recent history), as it begins to overwhelmingly dominate all forms of entertainment. Barely a day goes by where naysayers highlight how the TV industry is dying (as well as the film one) thanks to American streaming services. The decline of English football managers is influenced by the dominance of overseas (primarily American) investors. It’s something that I hear about more and more, and increasingly witness my daughters using American spelling and pronunciation instead of English.
The decline of the British Empire isn’t what I’m here to talk about, but it springs to mind when listening to Central Cee. You see, Central Cee (or Cench to his pals) is the biggest rapper in the UK right now, and when it comes to rap, which Americans have always dominated (and probably always will), the United Kingdom has had its fair share of successful artists that have found an audience outside of these grey, damp islands. Little Simz, Dizzee Rascal, The Streets, Roots Manuva – all unashamedly British-feeling in their musical output. Central Cee’s style feels different, even if he is draped in a Union Jack flag.
Just being draped in a flag feels like an American trait – it’s not something that would cross a self-deprecating Brit’s mind. Sway (the British rapper) used it a few times, when he leaned heavily into his British and Ghanaian roots, reminding us all that the UK is #2 and he was doing what he could to change that on his minor hit “Little Derek”.
The irony of this is just how goofy and British Sway’s music feels nearly twenty years on – I can’t imagine many Americans taking it seriously. The front cover of Central Cee’s blockbuster debut LP shows the Londoner adorned in the Union Jack, much like how American counterparts Mac Dre, Outkast, and MJG have all done before him with the Stars and Stripes. The key difference here is Cee’s music emanates from London, but it rarely feels authentically British.
More importantly, it rarely feels authentic. I struggled with Cee’s style of rap in a previous review of 2023’s “Split Decision“, which showed his weaknesses next to Dave, one of the UK’s better rappers. While Dave is an excellent storyteller and a captivating listen, he has something that makes you want to listen to him. Central Cee, for the most part, does not. The problem with having a drab, singular tone as a rapper is that your bars need to either be incredible (ie. Ka) or your voice is charismatic and easy on the ear (ie. Guru) – unfortunately, Cench is neither. With no emphasis or flow changes, “Can’t Rush Greatness” quickly becomes repetitive on the ear. Certain songs even come across as if he’s reading, losing interest in his own writing. He’s even given up lip-syncing in the video for the single “GBP”.
The monotonous lack of infection in his voice is prevalent throughout the album, to the point where it sounds like he loses interest in his own words. When I heard last year that Cee had slept with the similarly snoozy Ice Spice, it wasn’t because they’d had sex; they’d just been rapping to each other.
Money is a recurring theme, embracing the hyper-capitalism of his American cousins, with some of the biggest names in the US helping this album to cut through across the pond. “BAND4BAND” is the exact same song as “GBP”, but has Lil’ Baby filling in with some garbled gloating that’s not far from sounding like an AI interpretation of rap. Lil’ Durk provides some character to “Truth in the Lies”, itself carried by the familiar Ne-yo sample, but Cee reverts to the AutoTune style he utilised earlier in his career, which essentially removes any semblance of a British accent. Cee quipped on 2020’s “Day in the Life”: “turn off the Auto-Tune, let’s hear how you really rap”. I’m of the opinion that he should heed his own advice.
Negative impressions aside, there are a couple of songs that demonstrate Cee can maintain the listener’s interest. The first verse on “Limitless” gives us glimpses of emotion with a passionate performance, even though it still sounds like he’s reading out of a notebook. When he pulls back the curtain and lets the listener in, his songs improve dramatically. The conversational “Walk In Wardrobe” is another song that shows some of the honesty, even if his claims to be real are becoming increasingly difficult to believe following his beef with Aitch.
This beef is worth noting, as it helps explain some of my issues with Central Cee’s music that I thought I was alone on. On the song “5Star”, Cee admits that he’s a big deal, but finds it incomprehensible how Aitch won a Brit Award in 2023 for Best Hip Hop/Grime/Rap Act instead of him. This potentially throwaway line was promptly addressed by Aitch with his diss track “A Guy Called?”:
Trying to unpick why Central Cee comes across as inauthentic, a quick glance at his rapid rise shows a transparent knack for adapting to what’s hot, switching from traditional Hip Hop to trapwave in 2016, then shifting to drill in 2020. More importantly, though, many in the UK don’t buy his brand of street rap, documenting a lifestyle that rarely comes across as convincing. Aitch’s lyrical dressdown felt like a good “Ethering”, or even a “Not Like Us” moment for UK Rap, particularly as I didn’t realise Aitch had this level of nastiness in him (he’s often in the charts with Pop Rap). The final line in particular “I made millions off of my rapping ability, you made millions off of cappin’ and imagery” is brutal, and you’d expect Cee to be pissed off and come firing back. Nope. He simply said “Fair enough“, and moved on with his life. He’s just accepted everything Aitch has aimed at him and decided to walk away.
This is where Cee’s album “Can’t Rush Greatness” ultimately falls apart. The best songs on here are when he’s trying to be genuine, but when he openly admits that he’s not genuine, there’s nothing redeemable on offer outside of played-out financial flaunting filtered through an expensive American version of UK Drill. Rappers who are concerned more about their “bag” rather than their dignity, might explain why Cee has made it so far and is considered the biggest thing in the UK. He’s mirroring the model we’ve known for decades over in the States, and until arenas are chanting Aitch’s lines like they were Kendrick’s at the Super Bowl, his brand will continue to operate under the facade of “Greatness”.