Marking his first solo release in two years, Stormzy has returned with a new freestyle entitled “Sorry Rach!” – listen to the track below.
The Croydon rapper has not released an album since the soulful This Is What I Mean sailed straight to the top of the U.K.’s Official Album Charts in November 2022. In the interim period, he has worked on collaborations with a series of major artists, including Chase & Status (“Backbone”) RAYE (“The Weekend”) and Shawn Mendes and Jacob Collier (“Witness Me”), among others.
In March, Stormzy – born Michael Ebenazer Owuo Junior – picked up a BRIT Award in the fan-voted hip hop/grime/rap act category, beating the likes of Central Cee and Little Simz to the prize. The win followed the criticism he received online for teaming up with McDonald’s earlier this year on a promotional Stormzy meal, a controversy which he addresses on “Sorry Rach!” “I heard they wanna hang me out to dry for a nugget meal,” he raps. “The world might never love your way again but my mother will.”
The McDonald’s backlash began to spread after some of the 31-year-old’s social media followers pointed out that the Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions (BDS) movement had previously initiated a global boycott of the fast food chain for their support of Israeli forces in the Israel-Gaza conflict.
Prior to the collaboration, Stormzy had been vocal in his support for Palestine. In January 2024, he performed alongside acts such as Clairo and Mustafa at an event called Artists For Aid in New Jersey to help raise funds for the ongoing crisis in Gaza. In recent months, meanwhile, the rapper appeared to remove an Instagram post from October 2023 that called for a “Free Palestine.”
Speaking on the latter incident in February this year, Stormzy clarified: “I didn’t archive the post where I came out in support of Palestine for any reason outside of me archiving loads of IG posts last year. In that post, I spoke about #FreePalestine, oppression and injustice and my stance on this has not changed.”
In the same statement, he continued to speak on the reaction to his McDonald’s partnership, adding: “The brands I work with can’t tell me what to do and don’t tell me what to do otherwise I wouldn’t work with them. I do my own research on all brands I work with, gather my own information, form my own opinion and come to my own conclusion before doing business.”
“Sorry Rach!” was followed by a second track, “Hold Me Down,” Wednesday evening (May 7). A poignant ballad that reflects on life in the public eye, the latter arrived with a live performance video.
Elsewhere, Stormzy will be performing a short run of European festival shows this summer, with appearances booked for Norway’s Palmesus, Roskilde in Denmark, and Dour Festival in Belgium. Further information and tickets can be found on his official website.
This story originally appeared on Billboard
