Return of the Rucksack

Album: Gang Signs & Prayer (2017)
Charted: 53
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Songfacts®:

  • Here, Stormzy dismisses wannabe MCs who want to clash with him. He explained to The Fader: "The reason why it's called 'Return of the Rucksack' is because back in the day when I was younger, I'd always have a rucksack. The mandem knew me for that. It was like my little thing."
  • The song was intended to be a collaboration with Dizzee Rascal. However, the grime pioneer backed out as Stormzy's rhymes feature a riff on one of his own verses from his Mercury Prize-winning debut album Boy in da Corner.

    "Me and Stormzy were going to get in the studio but I didn't feel it was right," Dizzee explained to The Sun. "The song he sent me was Return Of The Rucksack. The chorus, that's actually a verse from one of my songs – Seems 2 Be."

    "I've had a lot of artists do that, sampling my stuff and wanting me to jump on it," Dizzee continued. "He quotes so many of my lyrics but the new generation won't know that."
  • The lyrics for Dizzee's first verse from "Seems 2 Be" begins:

    Roll deep on these, put these Mc's on deep freeze
    Hit these, wit these and rip these,
    Come like rusko, come flip these


    Stormzy's hook inspired by Dizzee begins:

    But I roll deep on these
    Show these likkle MC's about greaze
    Show these likkle MC's about me
    I was on my steeze from 2003

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