After a hiatus, is ready to face the world. In doing this, he has dropped his second full-length album ‘IT’S TOO LATE’. A rapper hyper-focused on artistry, his first album, ‘You Should’ve Known’, held together a forward-thinking stylistic throughline that was his and his alone. Serious has also released three other EPs, each one a development in quality and clarity of vision. Born to Ghanaian parents, he grew up in Germany but spent a lot of time travelling to see family members in the Netherlands and UK. This internationality raises his vantage point, subtly drawing on varying geographic influences whilst avoiding derivation. Trips to Ghana catalysed musical inspiration for Serious Klein. Yet, taking it way back, an early-adolescent encounter with Nas’ ‘Illmatic’ was the stimulus for his drive to write. Nasty Nas’ distanced, para-social teaching in those early years has now been rendered spookily resonant for Serious, with him signing to Nas’ Mass Appeal in 2024.
CLASH spoke to him via video call from his place in Dusseldorf. Amidst the excitement of his album release, he takes the time to notice Dusseldorf’s beauty, and endorse it as a place to visit. Yet, Dusseldorf’s architecture nor industry pressures were the thematic impetus for ‘IT’S TOO LATE’. Leaning into darker sounds, it is clear from the first few bars that they are addressed to someone.
Serious Klein has “been through a lot in the last year. There were a lot of people that flaked on me or did me dirty. I had to process that. I had to find a way to write it off my chest and this project was the way to do that.” The darker beats, however, are not necessarily a direct transduction of his psyche into the sonic. Speaking on the moodiness of the beats he said “I wouldn’t say it’s a dark time for me, but the energy behind the sounds is how I feel. It has so much power. It sounds so mighty”.
‘IT’S TOO LATE’ harnesses the vigour in overcoming his tribulations rather than wallowing in self-pity. “The project isn’t saying, “you hurt me.” It’s more like, “you tried, and I’m still here””.
On the new album, tracks such as ‘Smack Dvd’ (featuring Nana) and ‘Peak’ (featuring Nova9) lean into the digitally maximalist sound of the recent rap underground. ‘Mazingly Graced’ (featuring Boj) serves as a moment of tranquil afrobeats respite that explores taking pieces of the tattered past and building toward a better future. These sit amongst bangers such as ‘Politics’ (featuring ) and the horn-based ‘Eclipse’ (featuring Nana). Religion and spirituality are paramount pillars of Serious’ life. The opening bars of ‘Kairos’, for example, are addressed directly to God. This immediate spiritual framing allows him to wash his hands of the disloyal, whilst remaining faithful to Christianity’s radical forgiveness. “Every time I would sit in church, my pastor would say “you have to forgive”. I wasn’t sure if the project was doing that. So that’s why I start with a prayer and say “purify me from anything that is not of you””.
For ‘IT’S TOO LATE’, Serious inverted his usual process, allowing himself to be led by the sonics his producers provided. He “started with the beats, which was a different approach to my usual one”. ‘IT’S TOO LATE’ isn’t the sound every Serious Klein fan is going to expect. “Most of my stuff is conscious. This one is also conscious, but it’s in your face”. His new album certainly is, with the low-end enjoying a fervent limelight more or less throughout. After being “gone for a long time I felt like this was the right sound to come back out with”.
He then delved into his thematic exploration and beat selection further. “I already knew what I wanted to write about for each song. A title would come to my mind, and then I would look for a beat to match.” Serious’ deft curation of beats isn’t done through intuition alone – he has quite a structured process. “I tell my producer to strip everything down so I can just hear the bass. If the bass makes sense on its own then I let the drums be by themselves, and then the synth. Every element has to function by itself. Then, if everything makes sense together, we’re good to go.”
The first single for the album , was released in mid-October and features London rapper , who offers some striking bursts of spoken word throughout. ‘Heavy’ features a beat switch halfway through, a characteristic of hip-hop composition that is by no means new, but has been particularly in vogue over the past few years. ‘Heavy’s first section has a comparatively steady trap beat that then gives way to a heavier, piano-led instrumental that evokes a UK sound – not surprising since Serious “grew up on grime” and his “first heroes were Dizzee Rascal, Sway DaSafo, and Skepta”. The second beat “has a lot of energy. It’s dark. I wanted it to be the peak of the record. It wouldn’t have felt as special using it for the whole song, so it made more sense to have the two beats together.”
Beats aside, one of Serious’ most admirable tendencies is his penchant for lyricism. Recently, the most fashionable avenues of contemporary hip-hop have focused less on words and more on sonics. Serious feels “like lyricism is dying. For me, the words have to make sense even if I’m just flexing”. Resisting the cultural hegemony of three-second TikTok hooks and microwave music, Serious creates for the re-listener. He wants fans to hear different meanings and intricacies of wordplay with each revisit. He “feels like not too many people are doing that anymore but I also feel like the audience doesn’t always want that”. Going against the grain, Serious maintains that lyricism is “what keeps me alive when it comes to music”.
Resisting a zeitgeist that constantly privileges the visual over the linguistic, Serious “does a lot of research on history and the meaning of words” to keep his wordsmithery sharp. Inspiration strikes at any time. “Sometimes I’m grocery shopping. Sometimes I’m in the shower. Lately, my best bars have come to me on the train. I just let it happen.” Talented as he is, Serious refines his craft through consistency. “I have to force myself to write so I can stay disciplined”.
His lexical proclivity, perhaps inevitably, leads to comparisons with . Various interviews and comment sections liken and K.Dot, but this intended flattery does not always land in the way people think. Serious acknowledges that “Kendrick is everybody’s inspiration, but people need to do their homework because I might sound like Dot, but then he sounds like Eminem, and he sounds like Andre 3000. The first thing they grab for is Kendrick, which is cool, but at the same time, it’s a limitation”.
On the topic of GOATs, Serious signed with in 2024, fitting since ‘Illmatic’ was the first record he bought. “I remember I would go to a record store when I was 12 or 13. Every time I saw the album I would tell my mom “I want the CD with the kid on it”. Once I had the record, I started listening and paying attention. That was pretty much my entrance into rap music”. With IT’S TOO LATE being his first full-length release for Mass Appeal, a full circle moment becomes paired with emancipation and ascension from those who dragged him down.
‘IT’S TOO LATE’ is out now.