slowthai has dropped a new track, titled “ENEMY”, his first release since his debut 2019 album, Nothing Great About Britain. The song sees the rapper reference his behaviour at the NME Awards in February, and samples a quote by The 1975’s Matty Healy.

Opening with a cheering crowd, Healy can be heard speaking to the audience during his performance at the awards. “Everyone send your thoughts to slowthai,” he says, “fuck knows where he is but god bless the boy… fucking nightmare.”

The singer was acknowledging slowthai’s removal from the event after the rapper got into a brawl with an audience member who called him a “misogynist” due to his lewd behaviour towards host Katherine Ryan. slowthai was collecting his award for Hero of the Year when he made sexual innuendos towards the comic on-stage. 

After videos from the event emerged online, the rapper faced backlash, and later apologised to Ryan, writing on Twitter: “@nme please forward my award to @kathbum for she is the hero of the year. What started as a joke between us escalated to a point of shameful actions on my part. I want to unreservedly apologise, there is no excuse and I am sorry.”

Near the end of “ENEMY”, a female voice can be heard declaring: “slowthai, you have officially been cancelled. Cunt.” The track’s accompanying video sees the musician lit up by a green light, smoking, and rapping to the camera, and comes just months after he featured on Gorrilaz’s “Momentary Bliss”.

Watch the video for “ENEMY” below.