UK soul’s rising star creates a space of his own on a confident debut mixtape. Just over seven months separate the two parts that make up Sekou’s debut mixtape, which began with the In a World We Don’t Belong (Pt. 1) EP in November 2025, but the breakthrough star already sounds years ahead of himself on the five new tracks rounding out In a World We Don’t Belong. Precocity, of course, is the name of the game when it comes to the Leicestershire-born singer-songwriter, whose muscular baritone carries a depth of maturity that belies his comparative youth. The classic soul sound of tracks taken from (Pt. 1)—including silky smooth slow jam “Love Language” and “Never Gunna Give You Up”, which builds into a hook interpolating Barry White from verses reminiscent of Candi Staton’s “Young Hearts Run Free”—play to those vocal strengths and go a long way towards establishing Sekou’s musical lineage. And yet it’s the cantering house music tempo of “About Last Night”, produced by Sounwave (Kendrick Lamar, Beyoncé) that opens up space for Sekou’s own artistic identity to emerge, and later develop into bombastic, synth-heavy R&B single “Dangerous Lover” or the feather-light, feel-good funk of “Far from an Angel”. A spotless take on Fleetwood Mac’s 1977 ballad “Songbird” hammers home the fact that Sekou is comfortable standing on the shoulders of giants. The dynamic pulse running through the original tracks sitting alongside it suggests he is equally capable of rubbing shoulders with them too.