Amazon.co.uk Review
It’s a sleepy, laid-back kind of vibe that runs through
Man Like I, the debut album from North London’s Natty, but don’t mistake it for laziness. The tales we find within mark our narrator out as neither saint nor sinner, bouncing round London’s streets with a badman swagger and an eye for the ladies, but with a skill for a deft, lyrical narrative and a social conscience learnt from his heroes, “Marcus, Mandela and Marley”. And while Bob Marley is a fair reference point to Natty’s shuffling, light reggae skank, it’s just as easy to locate these tales of life, love, and misadventure on the streets of London in the neighbourhood of Lily Allen, Kate Nash, and their attendant clan of new-school songsmiths. Some of it, then, is pretty simple fare--see “Last Night”, a break-up number that sees Natty reach for the spliff and the bottle--but elsewhere, there’s politically charged numbers like “Burn Down This Place”, a lament for his slave ancestors, or “Hey Man”, which sees our narrator lash out at the political apathy displayed by his peers. “My father’s generation had fires in their belly, man/We sat there like living room furniture, in front of our tellys, man”.
--Louis Pattison
Daily Mail, May 2008
"Soundtrack to the Summer"