One Acen : SexyOddR-ose

One Acen’s trajectory has only been going in one direction, most notably after a multitude of hits with good friend and frequent collaborator Hardy Caprio including last years “Verified” and “Unsigned” with the latter spending fifteen weeks in the UK Singles Chart independently, as well as “Best Life” which ruled this summer peaking at number 26 in the charts and spent eighteen weeks there and counting. This year he’s followed that up with “Vice Versa” ft WSTRN, summer single “EIO” also featuring Hardy and more recently the garage-inspired “GucciChanel”, all leading up to probably the biggest project of his career thus far, the “SexyOddRose” EP. Earlier this year I put One Acen as one of my five UK rappers to watch in 2018, and this EP only serves to show why he deserved a place in that list.

Coming in at seven tracks, One Acen cements his lane as the go-to artist when it comes to feel-good music filled with inventive, quotable lyrics and memorable hooks all bursting with personality and charisma, and has formed quite a partnership with CallMeTheKidd, with the pair co-producing the majority of the tracks together. Some tracks (SIA) work better than others (Pina Colada Xperience), however there is enough quality across the EP to highlight his renewed status in the game, and what he brings to the scene, making it clear that he is here to stay. Even though features include big names like the aforementioned WSTRN and Hardy Caprio, as well as Avelino, it always feels as if they’re stepping into his world and that says a lot. We shouldn’t have expected anything less really, after all, he did say he’s “nothing like the usual”