In a nutshell: Move aside, the rest – 2019’s swaggering bovver boy has something to say

“It’s deep mate,” goes a lyric in this outrageously fun, beat-fuelled, boot-boy punk stomper. And it is deep – not necessarily the observation being referred to (“Every second you waste is a second closer to the pearly gates”) but the song as a whole, which skewers contemporary British life like a shish kebab.

‘Deal Wiv It’ dropped just last month, and the way it’s smashed its way to the top spot in our Songs Of 2019 list reflects Slowthai’s unstoppable rise in 2019, a year in which he released a Mercury-nominated debut album, slayed the festivals and became an anti-establishment icon.

Along with the Northampton rapper’s ascent, we’ve seen him pushed and pulled in a musical tussle between the dirgy trap of his youth and his increasing flirtation with the punk scene – including a close association with Idles. Arguably, that’s resulted in the future punk sound crystallised in this collaboration with hottest-of-the-hot producer Mura Masa, a man who’s been going through his own artistic existential crisis, pivoting from electronic music to guitars.

The result is something with so much energy it’s like drinking Monster in a moshpit, a Parklife-like stream-of-consciousness with precise comic timing and heaps of nutter-on-the-loose attitude, as if the spirit of Keith Flint were haunting the studio.

There’s been a massive trend towards politicised, angry music over 2019, not least on Slowthai’s own ‘Nothing Great About Britain’. While ‘Deal Wiv It’ doesn’t slap you round the chops with its message, we learn plenty about social mobility, tall poppy syndrome and personal politics as we join Slowthai bimbling through his day. If you don’t identify with the line “I woke up, I slept and woke up again / And this life don’t ever fucking change,” you’ve never had a job.

The UK’s political hydra has grown a new, more fearsome head in the weeks following the track’s release, but ‘Deal Wiv It’ feels even more relevant post-general election, because in a place of hopelessness, it’s the sound of your happy-go-lucky mate telling you to pull yourself together. Life gives you lemons? Deal wiv it. Dan Stubbs

Find it on: ‘R.Y.C’, due in 2020.

Key lyric: “I went to the pub and asked for a pint for three quid/ He said it’s a fiver, well that’s gentrification, you prick”

When to play it: Headphones on and pounding the pavements with a two-litre bottle of cheap cider in a blue plastic carrier bag