As you can imagine throughout the year of 2016 I have listened to an enormous amount of music and reviewed the projects which really caught my attention (check them all out here). The UK urban music genre (Grime, Rap, Drill etc) isn’t something I’ve covered heavily this year in my reviews but I can assure you I listen to them a lot.
In my Ice Kid 11 review, I mentioned how there has been a merge in the sounds this year with some of the distinctive genre boundaries becoming blurred in a good way. This merge and popularity of the scene in 2016 has really brought my attention back. A by-product of listening to all this music is I began to form overall opinions of firstly the projects of the year and secondly the artists of the year which I felt would make a good blog post.
In under than 100 words per artist(s), this will form the first part of a two-part blog post where I will reveal my artists of the year; largely based on how much replay value they had for me and their impact.
There is also #Top5TOP20 SoundCloud Playlist at the bottom of this post which I put together for you!
Disclaimer: not all the songs I wanted to put into playlist are on SoundCloud and artists without projects are excluded!
1. Skepta
Skepta has had a huge year in 2016 really flying the flag for the UK. This included becoming the second Grime mc to win the Mercury Prize, a string of international features and a blueprint Grime album (read my first thoughts here). His global impact and trajectory has only increased since Shutdown and it doesn’t seem like its slowing down either.
2. Giggs
Giggs is an artist I’ve followed for many years and I’ve always really felt the rawness and pain in his songs. I think his feature on Man Don’t Care in 2015 was a turning point; a completely revamped style which made him more appealing to masses. The LandLord album has two of my favorite songs this year in Whippin Excursion and Lock Doh.
3. Chip
MOBO winner Chip was more focussed on actual songs this year opposed to continually enhancing his artillery of war dubs. The Power Up Ep served as a project which did a good job in demonstrating the diverse range of genres Chip can take on as an artist. Check out my full review of the Power Up project here.
4. 67
67 in 2016 really brought UK Drill music to the forefront with Lets Lurk. Even without a Drake co-sign like Section Boyz had they have excelled what they did the year prior. At first, it wasn’t a genre which I really liked, but the more I heard it at festivals I began to understand the draw to it. It’s not something I can listen to all day every day but it definitely has its place and 67 are unquestionably the leaders of the genre 2016.
5. Mist
Mist is honestly the first Birmingham MC I have properly listened to. His M I S to the T EP had two huge singles Aint The Same and Karlas Back; both of which are never too far from my iPod playlist. He’s the first MC outside of London which I’ve seen do crazy numbers on Youtube like Nines does also.
Thats all folks!
1. M I S to the T
2. Lets Lurk
3. Power Up Ep
4. LandLord
5. Konnichiwa
[soundcloud id=’278862571′ artwork=’false’ format=’set’]
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