• Record Label: Big Dada
  • Release Date: Jul 19, 2011
Metascore
67

Generally favorable reviews - based on 20 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 11 out of 20
  2. Negative: 0 out of 20
  1. Jun 30, 2011
    80
    Wiley may be a little further along the grime road than when he started with It's Not Me It's You, but he continues to keep the genre travelling at an impressively quick speed.
  2. Jun 30, 2011
    80
    100% Publishing is a clever balancing act that allows the casual listeners in and retains them with riffs and tunes you can't ignore, but makes sure it's insubordinate enough to keep the regulars happy.
  3. Jun 30, 2011
    80
    The album is a fine document of why Wiley was, is, and will continue to be such a cornerstone of the grime scene.
  4. Jun 30, 2011
    80
    More importantly, this strategy puts Wiley's voice and personality front and centre.
  5. Jul 1, 2011
    75
    It might be hasty to applaud a return to form for an artist who's spent the past few years coming to terms with what that form's supposed to even mean. But it's still great to hear what Wiley can do when left to his own devices.
  6. Jul 11, 2011
    70
    Perhaps the album's only major drawback is its lack of jaw-dropping "wow" moments. It's as though 100% Publishing is almost a little too consistent.
  7. Jun 30, 2011
    70
    Maybe one rapper in 1,000 can rap effectively in 6/8, and Wiley is one of them.
  8. Jun 30, 2011
    70
    Above all, I can't help but feel that Wiley is still too much of a creative character, one relentlessly trying new and different things, to offer the sort of polished and succinct singles that would stick with a daytime radio audience. This unrelenting originality at least is something to be celebrated.
  9. 70
    Complex and slightly schizophrenic, 100% Publishing is a winner, even if the man himself is a PR's nightmare. Long live King Wiley.
  10. Jun 30, 2011
    70
    With Wiley's vocal attack as sharply acerbic as ever, 100% Publishing is a boldly independent declaration.
  11. It doesn't always hit the spot, but at least he's firing at more interesting targets than the usual renta-rapper.
  12. Mojo
    Dec 12, 2011
    60
    100% Publishing is brimming with energy and ideas. [Aug. 2011, p. 100]
  13. Aug 26, 2011
    60
    Stuck in his salad days, the problem isn't so much what Wiley is doing, it's what everyone else has done in the interim.
  14. The Wire
    Aug 17, 2011
    60
    The production values can't cover for the lack of lyrical pizzazz, [Jul 2011, p.55]
  15. Aug 5, 2011
    60
    I would love to hear what 100% Publishing would sound like coming from an artist completely oblivious to commercial label politics and public pressure. There would be a little less bitter posturing, and a lot more being Wiley.
  16. Q Magazine
    Jul 28, 2011
    60
    It's this kind of unresolved contradiction -- not to mention the flashes of self-deprecating wit -- that makes this return from the brink so fascinating. [August 2011, p. 112]
  17. Uncut
    Jul 28, 2011
    60
    Production-wise, his hallmark arrhythmic snares are now sounding a little rote nearly a decade after their inception. [Aug 2011, p.104]
  18. Jul 12, 2011
    60
    It seems like in each song Wiley is talking about a million different things all at once, but there's always the possibility that it's totally focused and you're just not keeping up. It's hard to tell.
  19. Jun 30, 2011
    60
    The problem for Wiley on 100% Publishing is that things just vary too wildly from song to song.
  20. 40
    Away from his favourite theme, Wiley struggles to bring interest or insight to his workaday observations, and while many of his grimey "eskibeat" grooves have an infectious, spartan quality about them, it's likely that in future they'll be more profitably employed behind other wordsmiths.

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