UK spitter Pa Salieu presents black suffering in its diasporic complexity on “Betty.” The British-Gambian artist toasts in the Jamaican dancehall tradition more often than he raps in the American hip-hop one; his voice bubbles and bellows as he lusts for cash, vowels skating through his lips as he levels goonish threats. Over a beat that rolls and crashes like whining hips, Pa Salieu issues a proclamation of violence. Each time he sings, “Dirty Betty, they ain’t badder than she,” he adds the onomatopoeia of a gunshot; at the end of the chorus, a gun loads then fires. Betty is characterized as a woman, but contextually, Betty seems like a tool of destruction, potentially referring to the “packs” Pa Salieu “slings” to “fiends,” or the weapon he “blasts.”

Violence begets violence; Pa Salieu has been candid about his dangerous UK home and his history there, recalling “selling this and that” to afford his next meal. “We just tryna eat,” he says in “Betty.” Hillfields—the Coventry neighborhood where Pa Salieu grew up—is ranked among the most economically and resource deprived communities in the nation by the English government. In 2017, Pa Salieu’s close friend was murdered, and last year, the rapper survived a bullet to the back of the head.

Such strain is hard to escape and impossible to forget, but writing songs about it is safer than continuing to live it. After the death of his friend, Pa Salieu channeled his grief into his music. “If I can somehow inspire people to [be] positive, that’s my help to the planet,” the rapper said recently. His stories of strife pave a path forward. Pa Salieu has also said he wants his music to reflect both the vibrance and difficulty of black life. “Betty,” a danceable track underwritten by trauma, aptly captures both.