Yo, TRENCH gang! We’re finally back in print for your headtops! After dropping our D Double E zine back in 2018, we thought it was about time we hit you with a new physical edition of what we’ve been doing so well over on trenchtrenchtrench.com: documenting Black British music and culture like no other! Alongside our six epic cover stories, we decode UK drill’s obsession with Marvel, <3 Morley’s, look into Britain’s remix of its racist past, pay our respects to the late Black The Ripper, and much more.

COVER 5/6: CHARLENE WHITE & NADINE WHITE

In 2014, Charlene White became the first Black woman to co-host News at Ten. In 2020, Nadine White became The Independent’s first ever Race Correspondent. And in doing so, they both made history. New ‘firsts’, if you will. They are firsts in their respective achievements because under-representation remains and every achievement over the decades reflects where all had not been permitted to go before. Charlene White and Nadine White are related. Their fathers are first cousins. Despite shared blood, ambition and industry employment, they speak individually from their respective professional positions. The Whites’ respective journeys into journalism were distinctly personal—same destination but through different, emotional, terrain...

Yo, TRENCH gang! We’re finally back in print for your headtops! After dropping our D Double E zine back in 2018, we thought it was about time we hit you with a new physical edition of what we’ve been doing so well over on trenchtrenchtrench.com: documenting Black British music and culture like no other! Alongside our six epic cover stories, we decode UK drill’s obsession with Marvel, <3 Morley’s, look into Britain’s remix of its racist past, pay our respects to the late Black The Ripper, and much more.

COVER 5/6: POTTER PAYPER

The scene wasn’t what it is now back in 2013 but Potter, along with second-generation road rap peers such as Nines, Skrapz, Fredo and good friend Mover, were cultivating fanbases based on gritty lyricism and movie-like soundscapes. Money was on Potter’s mind throughout this embryonic time, but not the kind earned from music, and he was fully entrenched in the street life his raps portrayed.

Yo, TRENCH gang! We’re finally back in print for your headtops! After dropping our D Double E zine back in 2018, we thought it was about time we hit you with a new physical edition of what we’ve been doing so well over on trenchtrenchtrench.com: documenting Black British music and culture like no other! Alongside our six epic cover stories, we decode UK drill’s obsession with Marvel, <3 Morley’s, look into Britain’s remix of its racist past, pay our respects to the late Black The Ripper, and much more.

COVER 4/6: The Story Of No Signal Radio... According To Scully

There’s a reason we’re proud to be ‘Black Radio’. It’s a dichotomy: at the same time as being a group of friends, trying to work out how we can make the best content possible, we have also been thrust into representing more than this. People I look up to and respect have told me the admiration they have. We’re building a safe space that future youth can come and find themselves. We want to have somewhere that we, and everyone else, can be authentically Black. In one short year, we’ve been a part of chart-topping album campaigns, we’ve done livestreams viewed in different countries, we’ve brought and kitted out studios, and we’ve managed to pay our peers to work with us. Yet this is so early in our infancy. This isn’t a piece that’s a story: this is an intro. I hope when you read this, you start to get a sense of what No Signal Radio came from, and what it can go on to be.

Yo, TRENCH gang! We’re finally back in print for your headtops! After dropping our D Double E zine back in 2018, we thought it was about time we hit you with a new physical edition of what we’ve been doing so well over on trenchtrenchtrench.com: documenting Black British music and culture like no other! Alongside our six epic cover stories, we decode UK drill’s obsession with Marvel, <3 Morley’s, look into Britain’s remix of its racist past, pay our respects to the late Black The Ripper, and much more.

COVER 3/6: LADY LESHURR

The character and vibrancy of Lady Leshurr has had a significant impact on the grime and UK rap scenes. There are ways to balance the toughness of rap with a light playfulness that stays current, and O’Garro does that effortlessly. In some ways, the influence she has on the game is understated...

Yo, TRENCH gang! We’re finally back in print for your headtops! After dropping our D Double E zine back in 2018, we thought it was about time we hit you with a new physical edition of what we’ve been doing so well over on trenchtrenchtrench.com: documenting Black British music and culture like no other! Alongside our six epic cover stories, we decode UK drill’s obsession with Marvel, <3 Morley’s, look into Britain’s remix of its racist past, pay our respects to the late Black The Ripper, and much more.

COVER 2/6: 20 Years Of Grime, by Chantelle Fiddy

It’s not new, but it’s ever-ready. Despite what you’ve heard, if you’re looking for the most lyrically dexterous, performance-hungry, stylistically savage verbalist, it’s still a grime MC. Whether you’re soundtracking a life of frustration or looking for that ultimate ‘get up and go gym’ push—still, look no further than your favourite grime DJ or producer. Once the UK bad boy, grime today finds itself off the hook and with a more suburban following—a similar pattern witnessed in the ‘90s jungle and UK hip-hop movements. Out of the limelight, it has gone full circle, gestating once again in more likely underground surrounds...

Yo, TRENCH gang! We’re finally back in print for your headtops! After dropping our D Double E zine back in 2018, we thought it was about time we hit you with a new physical edition of what we’ve been doing so well over on trenchtrenchtrench.com: documenting Black British music and culture like no other! Alongside our six epic cover stories, we decode UK drill’s obsession with Marvel, <3 Morley’s, look into Britain’s remix of its racist past, pay our respects to the late Black The Ripper, and much more.

COVER 1/6: UNKNOWN T

Few UK drill acts have been able to break free from the moody shackles the scene was built on in the mid-2010s, but Unknown T has always been different. TRENCH spent the day with the rapper in his old stomping ground of Homerton, East London, to get to know the real Daniel Lena...