“I think growth is always promised,” Pa Salieu tells Apple Music, reflecting on the joy and warmth of his sophomore release Afrikan Alien, a stark contrast to the blaring siren-like synths and the burning blue flame of his lyrics on 2020 breakout “Frontline.” “Before I went jail, I found out I had ADHD, so I’ve always been locked up in my own head anyway. I would’ve grown regardless, and mastered my craft. But jail was written for me. My spirit was supposed to gain something from it. I was supposed to be there, to see and to learn.” The Jevon-produced breakout track, and Salieu’s subsequent debut mixtape, Send Them to Coventry, catapulted him from the blocks of Hillfields, Coventry to a world of magazine covers, predictable—but wide of the mark—J Hus comparisons and an Ivor Novello nomination. He became UK rap’s brightest emerging talent, drawing on a myriad of Black genres, from drill and bashment to the hand drum patterns of his native Gambia, building a sonic world that felt truly distinct. Then, in late 2022, Salieu was sentenced to 33 months in prison, of which he served 21, for his role in a fight following the death of his close friend Fidel Glasgow. During this period of incarceration, he retreated to books on philosophy and a colorful playground of thoughts, letting them spill freely into lyric-filled notebooks. Those jail-cell musings form the majority of the writing of the tracks here, where the unbowed defiance of his debut remains. It’s now blossomed into a message of freedom and hope, splashed brightly over a canvas of pan-African and Caribbean sounds, from Afrobeats and highlife to dancehall and soca. On “Dece (Heavy),” he unlocks a playful, zig-zag flow, rapping in Wolof over plucked guitar strings and syncopated drum patterns, before stepping confidently into his artistic purpose on “YGF,” the project’s poignant closing chapter. “It’s freedom of sound,” he says. “The vibe is contagious. It’s needed at this time as well, man. The world’s fucked up right now, we’ve been raised through too much injustice for one to ignore the major injustices that are happening now.” Here, the MC talks us through his return, track by track. “Intro” “This album was what I intended, without chasing what I intended. I’d been touring [prisons] at this point and eventually I knew it was time. I wrote [‘Afrikan Di Alien’] there, the first step.” “Afrikan Di Alien” (feat. Black Sherif) “This is a spiritual one, and it just came to me. I didn’t aim for Black Sherif to be on it, but I was in a studio session [with UK producer LiTek] and he hit me up. We linked up and spoke about African politics, corruption, and how our generation have been given the knowledge that our oppressed ancestors didn’t have. I started laying these bars down, and he added on his hook. I wrote this in my fourth jail [of the sentence]. Someone was selling a speaker there for five vape packs—that was the currency. I had hella CDs at the time: Nina Simone, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles. And I know now what Nina Simone stood for: using her gift. So, I got the speaker and began to think a lot about how I come from folk music. That’s what my family’s been on. The power of folk music, the responsibility of it. There’s a purpose to my music. I’ve survived many things for a reason.” “Belly” “This track is about freedom. At the start of 2022, I started making hella music for when I came out—and writing songs made the prison sentence easier. Almost like I was supposed to be there. After all the things I’ve suffered, what’s some time sitting down? Music helped me train my mind for this time. If I went to jail with no feeling of purpose, with no plan, I could’ve fallen into anything.” “Ya Zee” “I wrote this after six months in jail. I had a Vybz Kartel CD on in the background. I was watching an advert on the TV. The Cadbury’s advert, with the gorilla [playing] the drums over Phil Collins [‘In the Air Tonight’]. Yeah, ADHD is mad. It’s like my mind just can’t stop! So I felt like I wanted to recreate it. I wanted to replace the gorilla with the red masquerade and instead of the drums, use traditional drums from back home: the sabar and the djembe. While I’m thinking this, I’m still listening to Vybez in the background. The ‘Ya Zee’ part, the flow came from that. And I’m writing, and thinking about the advert at the same time! That’s usually how I write songs, I can see it.” “Soda” (feat. Byron Messia) “This song came together like a book I read in jail about manifestation, [Esther and Jerry Hicks’] The Law of Attraction. I heard Byron [Messia] for the first time while I was in jail, and, in my head, I knew I was gonna do a tune with him. I came out and my A&R had already spoken with him.” “Round & Round” “This is straight from the heart. I can’t lie, I was sippin’ a bit of wine when I recorded this. I’m gonna do more tunes like that, one billion percent. Bro, I was practicing how to sing in my cell. I’d be up in the middle of the night, fam, waking n****s up! Jail was a blessing in disguise, to learn. You learn the most at your lowest times, when you’re forced to think. When you’re in times of ease, so many things go over your head. But when you’re at your lowest, and you’re not dead, you better take advantage of it. I’ve got a stab wound, and the skin has grown over it. More skin grows. It’ll never be the same skin.” “Dece (Heavy)” “I wrote the hook in jail, a cappella. I felt like I hadn’t written enough music in my mother tongue. And I speak a lot on my motherland, about my beliefs. But I don’t have a lot of songs in my mother tongue. I think that’s a different energy. I can tap into a lot of flows and rhythms with it. I like to explore. Sometimes I mumble until I find some out-of-this-world flow. It’s putting pieces together, and it’s fun. Language unlocks another level. It’s very technical. I love it.” “Allergy” “Back home, ‘Allergy’ is an old-school song, it’s bait! So I wanted to bring that vibe, but you know what? I came out of jail like, ‘no bad vibes. No bad energy around me. Achoo!’ Then I was like shit, let’s make it like a chant. Thoughts started going round in my head. Now, I’m seeing myself on a pitch, with 10 man around me, there’s 20 gyal around them. All doing the same thing in a circle. Like I’m hypnotizing them! Then there’s like 50 drums around the girls. Seeing all of this in my head, the verses started coming.” “Big Smile” (feat. ODUMODUBLVCK) “I wrote this in jail, listening to [2020 album] High off Life by Future. I couldn’t get beats so I had to just block out the vocals and write.” “Regular” “I also made this the same week that Byron came to the studio. The lyric ‘African intelligence, spiritually online’ I wrote during my last two months in jail. I maybe read over 70 books during my sentence. Big books! Knowledge is power, it’s powerful.” “YGF” “You know what’s crazy, Nina Simone’s ‘To Be Young, Gifted and Black’ was on repeat in jail. I probably absorbed it subconsciously before that, because, on my life, I made it a full year before I went to jail, when everything was getting peak. I wasn’t in a good place at all, bro. Music was crazy. It helped me, but at the same time I found it hard, like posting about tunes when they came out when I was going through this fuckery. It’s the lowest I’ve felt, may God forgive me for my times of weakness. Because I was weak, and there’s nothing wrong with that, but I was in a really bad place. I had to juggle a lot.”