Chris Ingalls: Kano is another UK rapper who brings a fresh perspective to the scene. Somehow setting the genre across the pond tends to — for me, anyway — hit the hip-hop reset button, and while this track isn’t necessarily revolutionary, there’s definitely an urgency and vitality here that can’t be ignored. Kano expertly spits out the rhymes, and the stuttering beat and minimalist piano give everything a terrific edge. [8/10]
Pryor Stroud: Issued over a halting, floridly expressive piano loop that could have been played by Sampha, “Endz” takes its skeleton and most of its meat from Kano’s patently British, mile-a-minute, brat-punk flow. Its socioeconomic play-by-play is plainly spoken and austerely presented, drawing attention to the seriousness of intensifying class stratification and the cognitive dissonance that results from being self-aware of one’s privilege. “It’s a gutter inside, outside, rah, rah, rah,” Kano observes, crafting a placeholder chant for a new anarchic-socialist revolutionary party that seeks to induct the street — and everything it implies — into the core of its political platform. [6/10]
Chad Miller: Seemed like there was a schism between the lyrics/rapping and the music. The contrast didn’t really work. Some of the lyrics in the verses were decent, but the continual “rah rah rah” and “blah blah”s just seemed to drag this song down. [6/10]
SCORE: 6.66