Song of the Day: Wiley, Sean Paul, Stefflon Don and Idris Elba “Boasty”

Well here we are in March and I’ve got my top club banger for 2019. I hope this one will continue to slap at least through summer.

Wiley, the godfather of Grime gathers around him a party punishing group of colleagues for a bashment of a posse cut.

As the title defines, “Boasty” is a classic study of braggadocio, with each rapper trying to one-up the one passing the mic. Wiley handles the hook, passes to Stefflon Don for some dancehall queen toasts, then Sean Paul comes in and does what he does which is blaze any tune he’s on. And batting the clean-up position is big and small screen star Idris Elba who despite being known as Stringer Bell, Luther and even Heimdall, touches upon his UK garage background and drops some clean closing bars. This cameo isn’t a fluke, as Elba has kept in touch with his pre-stardom rapping and DJing interests and even started a record label last year.

The video solidifies this assembly’s chemistry and sells the fun even more, with each vignette in the Henry Scholfield directed clip creatively erasing the preceding one, since boasting is about besting the next (wo)man. Wiley doesn’t even appear, portrayed amusingly instead by kid actor Brooklyn Appiah.