Akeem Ali

Akeem Ali is a rapper who writes in character, building songs around a smooth-talking, self-mythologising ladies' man he calls Keemy Casanova. The comedy is as much the point as the swagger: the persona lets him deliver boasts and come-ons with a straight face while the writing quietly undercuts them.

The music sits between trap and boom bap, and leans on warm, played-in sounds rather than programmed ones. Round bass, soft drums, guitar and keys borrowed from early-seventies soul and funk sit under a delivery that is unhurried and conversational, closer to talking than chanting, with the punchlines placed late in the bar. The subjects are courtship, appetite, self-regard and the comedy of a man taking himself very seriously.

He started writing as a child and committed to it in his teens, putting out a first mixtape and then a debut project, Rollin'. The Keemy Casanova character came later and travelled on its own, without a major label behind it and without money spent pushing it, and the EP Mack in the Day followed. He has gone on releasing outside the major-label system, and he builds his records around live instrumentation wherever he can.

Onstage he performs in character. The material is written to be delivered rather than shouted, so the work turns on timing, phrasing and the space he leaves between lines. He has said the swagger is a costume and that he is quiet away from it, which is part of why the persona reads as a performance rather than a pose.

This is rap for listeners who want charm and craft in the same place: writing that rewards close attention, delivered by someone plainly enjoying the act of delivering it.