**Stefflon Don: Island 54 Review – A Perfect Summer Playlist**
It may have been a dreary summer in the UK so far, but not on Island 54. The mythical setting for Birmingham-born rapper and singer Stefflon Don’s long-awaited debut album seems to perpetually exist at a balmy 30 degrees. This quintessential summer record uses dancehall as a base to explore a variety of global sounds, from grime to the South African dance style amapiano, which has been an inescapable sound at summer parties for the past few years, to electropop and Punjabi rap.
Island 54 benefits from crisp, stylish production and the knowledge that all anyone wants to listen to in the dog days of summer is a seamless, varied playlist that you can slap on repeat. Introspective cuts like the darkly toned ballad “Dem Evil” nestle in easily alongside the doe-eyed, lovestruck amapiano cut “Control” and sensuous Afrobeats tracks like “What’s Poppin” and “Desire.”
The album is long, but Stefflon Don is a flexible MC. She sounds like the third member of D-Block Europe when she adopts a fleet-footed, Auto-Tuned flow on “Madam Moiselle,” a collaboration with the hyped London duo, and sounds appropriately seething alongside the late Punjabi star Sidhu Moose Wala on “Dilemma.” As far as debut albums go, Island 54’s confidence shines through.
Stefflon Don has taken 10 years to release her debut album. But it’s not because the rapper, real name Stephanie Victoria Allen, hasn’t been working. With multiple awards under her belt, including a MOBO for Best Female Act, she’s just been biding her time. “I really wanted to let people have an insight of who Stephanie actually is,” she tells BBC Asian Network. “Being in this game such a long time, there’s this misconception, I feel, of who Steff is.”
Steff, 32, has been writing music since she was a child. But she says baring her soul and being vulnerable was part of the reason she put off writing an album. “You need to give the public insight to who you are eventually,” says Steff. “Before it wasn’t easy because when I did make vulnerable songs like that, I would just listen back and feel like I don’t need anyone to feel sorry for me. When you’ve been in the game for this time, people do need to connect with you on a different level.”
She says that’s the approach she took when making her debut album, Island 54. Across 20 tracks, it deals with how Steff feels as a woman and includes one song about her brother, who struggles with his mental health. “That one means a lot to me,” says Steff. “It’s very touching. There’s a few songs on there that get you to feel like, ‘Oh, I understand Steff a bit more and her life struggles.’ I’ve just grown so much, so many things have happened and I’ve become a lot more vulnerable,” she says.
But that’s not the only thing the album’s about. “We can’t forget the vibes – I am Jamaican,” says Steff. Steff was born in Birmingham to a Jamaican family but spent years living in the Netherlands before moving to London. “I was raised to be a part of multiple cultures,” she says. “And that’s why I feel like, when I am around other cultures, it just reminds me of when I was a kid.”
The rapper’s embraced that with her single “Dilemma,” which features lyrics from Punjabi artist Sidhu Moose Wala, who was shot dead in 2022. Sidhu was a household name in Punjab and among the Sikh population in the UK and Canada, but he was viewed by some as controversial before his murder. No one has ever been charged over the shooting of Sidhu Moose Wala.
Steff says she’d been working on “Dilemma” for years and was “so happy” with the verse Sidhu wrote, but he was killed before it could be released. He does feature in the video for the song, which producers created using AI. They cast an actor of a similar build for the video before a deepfake version of Sidhu’s face was superimposed on him. Steff admits she was “a bit sceptical” of using AI but was persuaded after seeing other videos using Sidhu’s likeness his family had supported.
She adds she met Sidhu’s family and friends when she visited his home state Punjab for the first time, describing it as “one of the most amazing experiences.” In April, 200 stars including Billie Eilish and Nicki Minaj wrote an open letter warning of the risks of AI in the music industry which they called “predatory.” Steff agrees with them but argues this was different. “When they speak on it, it was mainly because people actually made songs with AI – so not a video. That concern was for music like someone making a song saying this is Billie Eilish. Of course that’s dangerous.”
Steff hopes by using Sidhu’s likeness, it will help more people connect with his music and his legacy. “I feel like in the world that I’m in, people don’t know who Sidhu Moose Wala is,” she says. “So they get introduced to him by me working with him.”
Island 54 is a testament to Stefflon Don’s versatility and her ability to blend different musical styles seamlessly. It’s a perfect summer playlist that not only showcases her musical prowess but also gives fans a deeper insight into who she is as an artist and a person.
Source: BBC
