‘Heatwave’ has all the components to suggest it will be great. Released following a week of the hottest temperatures of the year, girls in bikinis dancing around a pool in the video, the godfather of grime is rapping about a heatwave, what can go wrong? It is a guaranteed number 1 without even hearing it, right?
Well, it probably is, but it’s still not great. It’s as if Wiley is trying to replicate Dizzee Rascal’s smash summer hit ‘Holiday’ from back in 2009, but unfortunately it falls far below expectations. The track begins well with some interesting synthy strings, but the abominable chorus ‘sung’ by Ms.D then kicks in, as she repeats “I’ma party, I’m gon’ dance, put your hands up on my body” (and when I say repeat, she really does just repeat it, many times). When Wiley begins rapping, his distinctive voice and Jamaican dancehall verse sounds great but this is paired with a simple and generic beat which lowers the tone of the whole track.
The track has the potential to be great. A more imaginative chorus and a big drop or two would make this a real summer anthem but without these, all we can hope for is a really good remix to make this worth listening to.
4/10
