Che Lingo & Mick Jenkins team for "No Sidekicks" (listen)

Mick Jenkins has been teasing and releasing songs from his TBA sophomore album, and while we wait for that, he also hopped on a new song by London rapper Che Lingo, “No Sidekicks.” “I’ve been a fan of Mick since a friend put me onto THE WATER[S] tape about 4 years ago and people always said to me we’d make a good collab,” Che said. “Being able to go back to back with him on a track and with such different metaphoric takes on this topic, just RAPPING gives me hope for hip hop both US and UK…it doesn’t happen enough.” The topic Che refers to is “admitting that as men we aren’t always the heroes and women are not accessories.” He adds, “They don’t always need saving and them wanting to be with us is a choice to be respected as a collaboration of lives. There are no Sidekicks in a healthy relationship and more time, it’s the men that need saving. In more ways than one. It’s important to continue to challenge old-school masculinity with this song, and realise its more than okay to be saved sometimes. I feel a lot of guys still struggle with this.”

Mick and Che both sound killer on this track, twisting and turning their words over a laid-back, piano-fueled beat, with a nice sung hook sandwiched between their verses too. This song follows recent single “Feet Your Feelings” (which was produced by Kendrick Lamar collaborator Like), and both of those songs will be on Che’s upcoming Sensitive EP. No concrete release date yet but it’s due this fall.