Blade Brown

London rap owes a lot to Blade Brown. Cutting his teeth in the city’s mixtape circuit in the mid-2000s, Brown stamped himself in history with his iconic Bags and Boxes series, which features some of the coldest, purest rapping out of the UK capital while blending in the textures of Atlanta trap. Born Jonathon Wrate in 1985 in London, Brown grew up exposed to the old-school rap music and reggae his father played around the house. The rawness of groups like N.W.A. inspired his off-the-cuff approach to early mixtapes like 2004’s Nothing Long, Vol. 1, which he recorded in a time of fruitful collaboration with other up-and-comers like Skepta and Giggs. His catalog reached a new high in 2010 with the first installment of Bags and Boxes, kicking off the classic series that influenced many of the scene’s newer rappers.