Common Sense was playfully aimless, a horny playboy fantasy with a few songs about gangsta paranoia. This is who he is: a lost son of Gambia, an adult-in-progress, a talented pop polymath, and just a guy who has a lot of sex. You discover that his versatility comes from feeling adrift and misunderstood in his own country, and these songs are a journey back to the center of his true self.īig Conspiracy plays like J Hus wants to set the record straight. Big Conspiracy reunites Hus with Common Sense architect Jae5, along with co-producers TSB and IO, and as a unit, they create the rapper’s most balanced and full-bodied music yet. Common Sense showcased his working knowledge of road rap, Afropop, reggae, turn-of-the-millennium American rap, and even the weirder corners of SoundCloud now, he is more concerned with how all of that might fit together. Improving upon his more eclectic debut, Common Sense, Big Conspiracy is smoother, preciser, and more measured. He seems to embrace the role of the anti-hero, but only on the condition that the nation recognizes its own role in shaping him. “They wanna judge me from what they heard I do/It’s a big conspiracy,” he sings sarcastically on his sophomore album’s title track. When he was stabbed in 2015, he was criticized for making gang signs in his hospital bed and glorifying violence.
In December 2018, the London rapper was sentenced to eight months in prison after being arrested for carrying a knife at a local shopping center, his third arrest for carrying a knife or being involved in knife fights. J Hus’ conservative detractors believe he and his music play an outsized role in the UK’s so-called knife crisis.