Pitchfork

Crime rhymes with another one-word player in the blogs 'n' crits Simon-says name game and, as usual, nobody's really winning. "Whatcha call it, grime?/ Call it what ya wanna call it, I'm fine," scoffs the serenely confident Kane Robinson on "Mic Check", one of many decidedly (un)grime tracks on the 20-year-old prodigy's debut album. If g**** is now understood to be everything British, brutish, blackish, hollered, squawking, Dizzeed, manic, squelching, and/or Wiled out, this would-be ambassador is running off the genre's pot-holed backroads onto freshly rolled-over blacktop that's still steaming in its stealth smoothness. Instead of clobbering like a cracked-up Thing popping Pow! pills, this East London MC nightcrawls through the shadows, slipping deep lyrical daggers over beats that are meticulously polished, waxed, and primed to play mirror to Kano's steep autobiographical musings.

A fierce student of both hyper-speed UK beat styles and (gasp!) American hip-hop, this doe-eyed poster boy's intrinsic influences are often bore out by an uncanny camou-flow that slyly adapts to Home Sweet Home's varied sonic textures. "If it's a good flow, it must be Kane," he brags, expertly utilizing the naturally egomaniacal third person. Luckily, unlike many delusional, self-satisfied young crowers, Kano offers enough solid evidence of his vocal dexterity to make Matlock blush.

While recent breakouts like the Game rep their idols with simple ad nauseam shout-outs, Kano's nods are more intrinsic to his rhyming style. Though it's nearly ruined by a cringe-worthy, Black Sabbath-sampling chorus, the clipped-guitar "99 Problems" Jr. scuff-up "I Don't Know Why" finds the MC acutely aping Jay-Z's Blueprint-era cadence (along with a couple Oompa Loompa-esque sing-song lines) as he lands pretty-boy punches with a knowing grin. The album's lead-off title track showcases his roided-chameleon adaptability as he eases listeners into his wordy realm by initially winding-up with a slow, off-kilter flow before gunning in-the-pocket fastballs all over the track's airtight electronic playing field, courtesy of frequent collaborator Mikey J.

Produced by famed world traveler Diplo, the frighteningly impressive "Reload It" provides a living, breathing drum 'n' bass gauntlet that Kano duly annihilates as it skips between double-time snare-snap and ambling, woozy wobble. With guest shots from Ritalin-defying mic sharks Demon and D Double E, the track also offers a crystalline illustration of why Kano's trans-Atlantic potential is off the charts: Relative to his peers' slang-slinging verbal zig-zags, Kano's immaculate enunciation and unruffled demeanor are easily deciphered without a gully-made RWD decoder ring. Not to say his wordplay and content are simple. Along with a wide-range of production styles and multi-flow grandstanding comes an equally assorted thematic breadth. Whether he's bitching-out brut bouncers with verbal assaults ("Typical Me"), ruminating on teenage love (the Streets-produced "Nite Nite"), calling-out closed-minded youths ("Nobody Don't Dance No More"), offering a mega-ton boast-a-thon (the already classic "P's & Q's"), or just getting his Hennessy on ("Remember Me"), Kano injects nearly every track on Home with refreshing depth. Backed by luscious wind-chimes and chipmunk squeal vox samples, the lovey-dovey "Brown Eyes", with its not-so-romantic refrain of "I don't want to fall in love," is noticeably more conflicted and realistic than your typical female-demo pandering fare.

Stellar album cuts like the introspective stunner "Sometimes" see Kano tempering his encroaching stardom with second-thoughts. "When they say I'm the next one to blow I say why do they think me," he admits, "All I do is stay in mostly and sleep/ And all I do is watch Channel U and drink tea/ Why me?" He combats such internal struggles with staggering maturity and an appealing, hard-working sense of earning ends on his own terms. "The hood think I'm signed, they like 'I swear he is'/ But I'm still in the grind writing lines all day, every night," he insists with focused intensity and ghetto guilt on the blue-collar anthem "9 to 5", taking absolutely nothing in his life for granted.

Such striving, self-motivational forces are no stronger than on "Signs of Life", a six-minute-plus cautionary tale marked by arch strings and doom-boom sci-fi bass. Crushing the easy-made glorification of hip-hop's drug-slinging stereotype, he points a clenched fist at a locked-in bruva: "You ain't so rich now/ I bet you feel like a prick now/ Cause where's all your fancy shit now/ Where's your whips, chicks, and your bits now/ Shit, you should have fixed up/ Fuck drugs, the mic you should've picked up/ And it was all for big bucks, now your sittin' in a cell doing sit-ups."

Kano doesn't just defy the sonic tradition of grime on Home Sweet Home, he defies the tidy boxes MCs are usually plopped in upon their arrival. "I'll never have a calm day's rest until my album's in stores next to Kanye West," he claims, and though the likelihood of a record store sorting their wares by first name seems slim, the two MCs do share an urge for multiplicity. Laying down roads every which way, this nimble artist's future destination is promising and unpredictable: No matter what happens to grime, Kano is poised to endure.