Tino Kamal’s ‘Switch’ Review: New Ways of Facing Change
What does it mean to shapeshift? For UK genre-anarchist Tino Kamal, it’s less a party trick and more a survival instinct. Switch, his new six-track EP, is a work of constant motion—furious, fractured, and deeply felt. At its core, it’s a document of instability, but not in the way that suggests weakness. If anything, Tino Kamal’s volatility is his strength.
From the opening track “Rodeo Ranger,” Tino Kamal throws himself into chaos, his voice snarling over warped club beats and splintering percussion. The track sounds like it was built for a strobe-lit boxing ring—designed to rattle your ribcage and dare you to keep up. But Switch isn’t just about brute force. It’s also about clarity, and the way Kamal threads these contradictions is what gives the EP its disorienting power.
Much of Switch feels like it’s been carved out of instinct rather than theory. “Curry Goat Riddim,” a nod to both Kamal’s heritage and his refusal to be defined by any single identity, carries the weight of cultural pride without once pandering. His flow stutters and swells like a heartbeat under pressure, anchored by production that flirts with dancehall, grime, and a kind of industrial funk.
Then there’s “24365,” a simmering cut about burnout and ambition in equal measure. Kamal raps like he’s got nowhere left to be but everywhere to go, making space for self-doubt in between declarations of dominance. “Girl Better Know” pivots again—equal parts love letter and resignation. It’s tender, sure, but the tenderness comes coated in barbed wire.
The most fascinating moment, though, is “Gangsters Drag,” a track that doesn’t just challenge gender norms but scrambles the very idea of performance itself. It’s not an anthem, nor a lecture—it’s something closer to a reckoning. Kamal doesn’t offer solutions here, just questions spoken through grit teeth and lip gloss.
If Where the Wild Things Are was Kamal’s coming-of-age record, Switch is the sound of rejecting the pressure to become anyone other than who he is in the moment. It’s messy, urgent, and—true to its name—always ready to become something else the second you think you’ve figured it out.