The comment section was belligerent: “UK rap is shit!” went one epistle. So I felt compelled to reply. In recent years, huge stars such as Stormzy, Skepta and recent Mercury Prize winner Dave have taken over the rap world. That and Skepta’s immaculate dress sense make him the winner… at least until Stormzy’s second album drops. i mean obviously skeptas album will be better but WS4 got top 20?! There is nothing greater than having the support of your country – look at Dave’s recent Mercury Prize win for ‘Psychodrama’. © 2020 NME is a member of the media division of Don’t compare us to the US no more,” I wrote. On the singles side, Vossi Bop back in May entered at No. And Perhaps it’s natural that American audiences would be less interested in UK rappers than their own exports, considering their rich rap scene. The first hit 100k sales and the second is still being counted. Stormzy - real name Michael Owuo Jr - went on to release the track Wiley Flow on his new album, Heavy Is The Head, which some fans saw as a tribute … “But I was once naïve, too. They’re privileged, we’re sure. yeh i agree but then you think how much hype there is around stormzy, youtube views etc and you can't be sure. The former may have broken into the mainstream, but it arguably wouldn’t have been possible without Skepta in the first place. But what do you expect when 99.987% of the rappers you saw on MTV were American? We don’t need US approval”. 1 with 12.7 million listens and sales only eclipsed by Arianna Grande. By signing up to our newsletter you have agreed to our Hip-hop originated in South Bronx, New York, but doesn’t make US rap superior. Despite this – and I speak from experience, having defended my country’s musical talents time and again – US rap patriots are the hardest to convince.
When I play parodies such as But no matter how frustrating it is to see our talent constantly scrutinised, in the UK we know we’ve got the goods. so i dunno. STORMZY At launch Stormzy’s debut album hit 69,000 sales, making it the first grime record to hit number one in the British charts. Sure, AJ Tracey and Dave embarked on a joint three-date tour in 2017. I wasn’t having any of it.Living in London, I meet many creatives who are always on the go. Over the past year, there have been numerous UK and US collaborations, one of the biggest being ‘How It Is’, a team-up between US rapper Roddy Ricch and the UK’s Even when UK rappers do break through to America, it often seems like an isolated success for each artist. They prove time and time again that there is something magical about UK rap. The post depicted some American guys aggressively doing terrible British accents, the video captioned, “UK n****s when you tell them UK rap is trash”. “No one can understand them”, said another. Throw in Skepta’s earlier works and he’s a long way ahead here.