Songfacts®:

• "Chapter 16" is Dave's handshake across generations. A track from his third album, The Boy Who Played the Harp, it's his first collaboration with British grime legend Kano.
  
  Before Dave was selling out arenas, Kano was already setting the blueprint. His 2004 breakthrough single, "P's And Q's," was practically a curriculum for UK rap fundamentals. By 2005, he'd picked up a MOBO for Best Newcomer, which, in hindsight, feels a bit like giving Isaac Newton an award for "Most Promising Apple Observer."
  
  The song is about Kano anointing Dave as the heir to the throne, making him the new king of the UK rap scene.
• Dave and Kano converse throughout the song, exchanging respect and talking shop about fame, legacy, and the business of being a British rap hero.
• Dave and Kano first crossed paths on the Netflix revival of Top Boy, where Dave played Modie - the volatile gang leader from London Fields - and Kano reprised his role as Sully, the brooding kingpin of Summerhouse. On-screen, they were mortal enemies; on "Chapter 16" they are comrades at peace, reflecting on how far the culture has come since grime's pirate radio days.
• The album's title draws from the biblical King David, "the boy who played the harp," and the song mirrors Chapter 16 of the first Book of Samuel, where the prophet Samuel anoints the shepherd boy David as king. In that sense, Kano is the prophet anointing the next ruler. "Kano passed me the torch, I received it," Dave declares on the album's title track, sealing the moment like scripture.
• James Blake co-wrote and co-produced the track. It's one of four Blake fingerprints on The Boy Who Played the Harp, with "History" and "Selfish" also featuring his spectral vocals.
• The orchestral arrangement includes harp, played by Eleanor Turner, directly connecting to the album's biblical imagery.