We recently caught up with Welsh rapper Drew Iain who is gearing up to drop his new mixtape.

Born and raised in the village of Gilwern, near Abergavenny, Drew Iain burst onto the music scene as a solo artist when he dropped his debut mixtape A Conversation with Myself in October 2022. And the 29-year-old has been busy since, working on his second album while studying music industry enterprise at university.

Drew’s second album From The Inside Looking Out is due for a summer release and includes his recently released single End Up.

Read on to find out what we thought of the track and – more importantly – what the singer and songwriter has said about it all…

End Up was the first song Drew wrote for his second album and includes additional vocals by Rowan Armiger (who is also featured in the music video).

“End Up follows the story of a guy whose fallen upon hard times and turns to desperate measures,” said Drew.

“The focus of the song is more about the emotions and that feeling of desperation than the particular situation.”

End Up is a cautionary tale focused on a man whose desperation to provide for himself and his family leads him down a dark path – it draws on real experiences that many people face such as poverty, desperation, and the moral dilemmas which can be caused by survival mode.

The song does not glamorise crime; lyrics such as “this is what I gotta do to provide” demonstrate the helplessness felt by the protagonist who is “not proud” of the choices he’s made and has “never felt so stuck”.

The repetition of the line “who knows where I might end up?” in the chorus drives the point home – the character knows they’re endangering........

© South Wales Argus