Hip-hop loves a good gimmick. Kool Keith: Sex freak. Ol’ Dirty Bastard: Mentally ill baby daddy. And now Pitman: Northern coal miner obsessed with tea and biscuits. Toeing the line between comedy and dead seriousness, Pitman’s debut album, It Takes a Nation of Tossers, is that rare beast that contains joke raps and out-and-out club bangers, and actually pulls it off. On one of the album’s signature tracks, “Twat Farm Revisited,” Pitman whines about “trendy mothers driving Minis”, “playing Coldplay and drinking coffee” over a funky chicken break and some good old-fashioned boom bap. Like The Streets, Pitman is obsessed with banalities-but this means buying scouring pads, coal mining, complaining, drinking tea and doing the running man. It’s not for everyone, but Anglophiles, UK hip-hop heads, and anyone who loves a good plot should apply.