Over the last five years, Rawkid has marked himself out as one of the best grime emcees in Sheffield. He's perfected his flow, switching between double time, and a slower pace, using his voice to depict comedy, passion or to look back in retrospect over an eclectic mixture of beats compared to your usual grime project.
Coming in at ten tracks, the GRUM mixtape showcases everything good about Rawkid, and pushes grime into new territory while keeping the raw, high-octane energy that original fans of the genre will appreciate. With this project, Rawkid stakes his claim to be in the conversation as one of the best new MCs, full stop, showing that his years of hard work and honing his craft have indeed paid off.
Check out GRUM exclusively above and learn more about the tape below.
COMPLEX: How long have you been working on the GRUM mixtape?
Rawkid: I recorded most of these tracks a couple years back then lost the hunger for music. But Trellion would constantly push it in my face and say, "Raw, this is too much not to let people hear."
Why did you decide to wait until now to release your debut project?
I was bored of listening to mediocre music coming out of my city, so I thought I'd give the people some throwback music which is levels above most current music [laughs].
Kyro features a few times on the mixtape—how did you get to working with him?
Yeah, me and Kyro go back 7/8 years; he's one of the main reasons I started making music, as we was in a crew together called Regimentz. Not a lot of MCs make me want to write new music, but he's one of them.
What does this mixtape mean to you?
It means a lot because it shows a lot of growth to what I've become now, even just listening to what I'm talking about, etc. Plus, me and Trell would sit and write bars to 808s then I'd go home and he'd ring me with a finished track.
Plans for the future? Anything you want to shout out?
The future is "7 Hills God". I wanna shout out anyone who ever thought I'd stopped making music. You can all sit down now.
