Name: MANIK MC

Where He’s From: North London

When He Started: 2009

Genre: UK Hip-Hop

File Next To: Jehst, Loyle Carner, Frankie Stew & Harvey Gunn

Sounds Like: “Somewhere between rap, hip-hop and grime, I guess. It kinda jumps around depending on my mood or the music.”

First Music That Inspired Him: “The Roots’ Do You Want More?!, Skinnyman’s Council Estate Of Mind, and Kano’s 9 To 5.”

It barely needs repeating that UK rap’s in the best shape it’s been in for years. Not only is it dominating the charts, it’s doing so on several different fronts. UK drill artists like Russ and Tion Wayne are sitting side-by-side with the likes of Giggs in the UK Top 40—something that would’ve been unheard of even just a few years ago. But there’s so much more besides that. North Londoner MANIK MC, for example, combines an unmistakably UK flow with jazz-inflected productions that combine laid-back, West Coast vibes with a self-assured attitude that could only come from a UK emcee.

He’s already made a lot of the obligatory stops at places like COLORS Berlin, FUBAR Radio and SBTV, but it’s the 2017 EP, Midnight Express, that should be your jumping off point with MANIK MC. Put together in the cold light of day, that output may not seem huge, but MANIK has nearly a decade of experience and hard graft behind him. His parents, he says, raised him on a steady diet of “a lot of soul, funk and jazz mainly,” adding “props to my parents. They kept it pretty eclectic so I got exposed to quite a wide range of music growing up.” Then, from as young as 14, MANIK was spending any free time he had honing his skills at spoken word slams and open mic nights, grabbing any and every opportunity to test himself as an aspiring emcee.

After putting out a handful of standalone singles beginning with “Killin’ Time” in 2009 (which he jokingly describes as “very whack”), it would then be seven years before he dropped Midnight Express, and the years of thought and planning are plain to hear, particularly in sage lines like: “Caring for your parents, gets so hard tryna live with them / It’s part of the life, resenting all the time you have to give to them / Tensions start to rise,” in the heart-breaking “Shadows”. There aren’t many MCs who can write so thoughtfully and with so much self-awareness at 23, but MANIK MC can.

Image via Foot Locker (Manik MC fronts the Foot Locker SS19 Space Campaign)