On September 4, the sad news broke that revered MC Bomma B, sometimes stylised as J Bomma B, had passed away.

Although Bomma B was a respected figure in grime and rap—with a stack of revered freestyles and releases to back that reputation up—it was in bassline that he'll be best remembered. Whether solo, with the Bully Boys set, or the extended family of Birmingham MCs, Bomma B's voice always stood out a mile.

Nowadays the respect owed to Birmingham in rap, grime and, of course, bassline is taken for granted, but that wasn't always the case and it's thanks to the tireless work of people like Bomma B that rappers and MCs are respected not just as competitors, but as innovators in their own right.

Back in the 2000s, even when bassline was chipping away at the charts thanks to people like H "Two" O and T2, the genre wasn't quite as respected as grime and garage. Away from the sugar-rush hyper-polish of bassline's chart-friendly iterations, people like Bomma B, Trilla, Deadly, and Pressure were making sure bassline kept its rougher, harder edge intact.

There's a whole treasure trove of radio sets, freestyles, mixtapes and tracks out there to dig into, but it's this freestyle with his Bully Boys teammate Grinstar that we wanted to highlight. The pair scored themselves a bit of an anthem the same year with Wittyboy's "Oi Oi Flippin Hell" ("What's It Gonna Be" was also 2008) and this set was perfectly timed to celebrate the duo keeping the fire and grit in bassline.

Rest In Peace, Bomma B.