Name: afrosurrealist

Where He’s From: Milton Keynes via South London

When He Started: 2023

Genre: Alternative UK rap/Grime/Afro-fusion

File Next To: KwolleM, BexBlu, oakland

Sounds Like: “My sound is more like a feeling than a formula. It’s heavily UK, but I draw from grime, ambient textures, soul music—even jazz and gospel sometimes.”

First Music That Inspired Him: “AJ Tracey’s ‘Wifey Riddim’ was a big influence on me. When I first started, I was exploring edits by artists like oakland, Wilfred and 808mystic. I got really into that whole rework world. Another big influence was KwolleM’s stuff; I listened to the Mellow EP on repeat. After that, I heard AJ Tracey’s “Hood Politics”, which is genuinely one of my favourite beats ever. I thought to myself, ‘Yeah, I need to create something like this.’”

At just 19, afrosurrealist is kind of like Top Gear’s The Stig, if he made beats in his bedroom (stick with me here). Over the past 18 months, he’s become a faceless phantom drifting through the UK scene, carried by a smoke cloud of beats with serious tread behind them. The Milton Keynes-bred, South London-based producer and sample savant operates in a space where soulful nods, Afro-fusion and DIY grime edits all intersect, chiselling out a melodic purpose built for him.

Before his recent artistic pivot, afrosurrealist had already garnered acclaim (and millions of streams) with his Reworks EP in late 2023, a seven-track grime throwback that sold out on vinyl and saw him straddle the lines between heritage and horizon. “The first beat I made was ‘Be Serious’, but it originally had a different background by S1,” he tells TRENCH. “I posted it, it did alright. Then I heard the Jme acappella—the flow was calmer, more melodic, so I kept the melody in, layered in some drill-ish drums, and that one blew up. That sound really inspired the whole vibe of Reworks.” Raised on a steady diet of groove-heavy production, afro credits MM.. FOOD by MF DOOM as a pivotal point of inspiration. “I discovered it a few weeks before he passed,” he explains. “He wasn’t just sampling songs—he was sampling Spider-Man episodes. That was so sick to me. I realised I needed to put in work with my sampling to make it as alive as DOOM.”

The Gilliam Writers Group defines Afro-Surrealism as a mid-20th Century artistic movement that blends pillars of the dream-like, wondrous and optimistic with the lived Black experience. For afro, he lives up to his namesake and harkens back to a specific vein of Black British sentimentality. Ever the zealot for culture, you can catch Big H’s Practice Hours 2 bars (“fiftypoundnote”) and Jean-Michel Basquiat-inspired artwork across his visual and audio laboratory. He dives into his mental rolodex to discuss the sounds he loves, citing Monte Booker as a major inspiration while growing up in Milton Keynes, before touching on his move to Wandsworth, South-West London. “I picked a uni here so I could be close to studios,” he adds. “I couldn’t imagine going to Leeds or something and missing out on opportunities.”

Since then, afro has dropped “6 Figures” with close collaborators Chefbkay and N4T, and “The Valleys Are Peak” with Ceebo and Zino Vinci on the mic, with co-production from Jim Legxacy. The former leans into Afro-fusion, while the latter stitches together fragments of breakbeat, grime and UK rap for the two MCs to spar over—two distinctly different cuts that doubled as sizzle reels for his debut album, BUYBRITISH, showcasing the sheer variety of afro’s reclaimed Black Britain and Queen Liz-themed iconography.

“For ‘6 Figures’, I wanted to have a party anthem, so I asked .nathan. to help out because he’s got great, emphatic drums. I knew Chefbkay and N4T both have amazing charisma when they perform, so they were perfect for it.” Diving into the creation of BUYBRITISH, afro channels the buzzing, all-star energy of ’90s UK-style rap mixtapes, packing its 13 tracks with a medley of talent—from Tay Jordan, Floetic and Samson, to Gabriella Cole, BexBlu, REEM and OG KEMi. The album’s Union Jack-inflected artwork and overarching narrative are grounded in the nuances of growing up Black British, weaving in rose-tinted flashbacks to yesteryear.

“I wanted some of the songs to be like a recall of things you would have experienced growing up Black British. For example, ‘Year 11 Prom’ is something a lot of people have a fond memory of. Tracks like ‘No Ball Games’ are titled to bring you back to when you were young and playing football around the neighbourhood, where you would always see that sign. There’s a lot of little nods to things you would have experienced when you were younger and that’s why I went for those names.”

Speaking with afro at TWSTDFEST 2025—ahead of his BUYBRITISH set alongside newcomer Brooklyn Lodovico, Saiming and Tay Jordan—he reflected on his often locked-off online presence versus the stage-bound limelight. “It’s something I’m still debating with myself,” he admits. “Sometimes I want to be in the spotlight, performing, talking, doing all of that, and other times I want to be more low-key.” Much like the way collectives such as Harlem Spartans, Vibbar, OFB and House of Pharaohs once defined their own eras, afrosurrealist’s circle of collaborators—as heard across his latest project—shares the same creative DNA, built from strands of camaraderie and artistry.

When discussing his overarching career goals and vision for the future, afro concluded: “Ultimately, I just want to make music to the best of my ability with all my friends. Doing something like TWSTDFEST is amazing because I get to perform alongside people I’m close with, whose music I love and who I also create with. I’ve seen a lot of discourse on TikTok about UK rap being dead and people nostalgic for Afroswing, but we must be listening to two different sides of music: my playlist, full of UK music, is fire! The scene is thriving right now.”