Top Boy: A First Look

In 2017, with secretive talk of rapper Drake’s interest in the Channel 4 series Top Boy, the show was revived for a third season on Netflix.

News of this revival came in the nexus of the debate of UK artists’ international exposure, and how wary to be of Americanisation, or more to the point “Canadianisation”. This is a genuine concern when considering the integrity of representing a very UK culture: the season opens with an AJ Tracey track and the soundtrack is predominantly UK artists but released on OVO, and the stories progress in cafs or flats that could only be in London.

Luckily Top Boy has pulled no punches, either in the deployment of slang (the patois of the Jamaica sections might not need Shottas-level subtitles, but it’ll keep you on your toes), or the bleak depictions of some very poignant and pressingly current themes: deportation of the Windrush generation; the effects of postcode wars on innocent civilians.

The cast of Top Boy at the London premiere.

The payoff of Netflix-distribution and obviously weighty backing from Drake is immediately clear in budget payoffs – the end of the first episode is truly cinematic, and with an extended 10-part series, Top Boy feels like it has more time to be pensive, and to explore the human element which defined it as top class.

To this end, the cast of current and former music artists (Bashy, Little Simmz, Ashley Walters himself, Dave and Kano) may well happily surprise viewers in how seamlessly subtle their acting chops are. Delving further into the satellite stories, the widely varied age-ranged cast are solid and engaging, proving Top Boy’s ability to involve audiences in more than simply “gangster-drama” when Walters’ Dushane returns from exile to a London both fractured and gentrified, full of old friends and acquaintances carrying both the physical and mental baggage of the previous two seasons events.

Thankfully, it looks like the “Drake curse” has been lifted, none of which should detract from the fact that Ronan Bennett and Reinaldo Marcus Green et al. have created and directed a truly stellar British drama that has stayed true to its roots on the international stage.

Top Boy (technically season 3 despite the fresh start) is available on Netflix now.