Name: Asco

Where He’s From: East London

When He Started: “I can’t remember the particular year, but it was around the grime and MCing days, so maybe around 2002, 2003. It was more around my secondary school days.”

Genre: UK rap

File Next To: Fredo, Blade Brown, Potter Payper

Sounds Like: “I’d define my sound as raw, authentic, uncut and drippy.”

First Music That Inspired Him: “I don’t remember there being a particular song that made me want to make music. I just remember a time with artists like Biggie, 2Pac, Nas and Mobb Deep.”

A graduate of the hugely influential rap outfit Mashtown, East London’s Asco is one of UK rap’s most respected lyricists thanks to his combination of East End griminess, unvarnished road rap, and a precise approach to writing. For a while, he was “your favourite rapper’s favourite rapper”, but criminally underappreciated outside of the underground.

The first track he ever recorded, he tells TRENCH, was “Fresh Out The Bing” in 2006 (a Sopranos-inspired joint he references on Perfect Timing highlight “The Boy’s Back”), but it wasn’t until 2016 that he started making serious moves as a solo artist. His debut project, 2018’s Better Later Than Never, stuck the landing and with hits like “So Litt”, “Cheque” with Loski and “Playing For Keeps” with Fredo, he seemed guaranteed to capitalise on rap’s next tidal wave.

But it wasn’t to be: in 2019, Asco was handed a lengthy prison sentence. Thankfully, he was released early and, last year, he returned with the fifth edition of his ongoing freestyle series, “Straight Drop X5”, followed by a breadcrumb of singles that led to his new album, the aptly-titled Perfect Timing. Never one to shy away from reality, rather than skirt over his recent past, he shines a harsh light on it, speaking openly and without regret about what landed him behind bars.

Perfect Timing is a polished and well-structured LP that gives some measure of his stature and the respect he has in the scene via features from K-Trap, Young Adz and a triplet of Daily Duppy freestyles (a world first, it should be noted). He may be on good terms with the scene’s big players, but Asco doesn’t mince his words when asked for his thoughts on the state of rap. “I don’t think UK rap is in the best state,” he says. “People aren’t expressing themselves how they used to—they’re scared.”

Could this be the start of a rap revolution? Time will tell.