The UK Hip-Hop and R&B scene has been on the rise for years now, numerous acts out of the UK have gone on to reach global success. Artists like Stormzy, Jorja Smith and many more have been paving the way for a new era of exciting talent, born and bred here in the UK, to be heard all over the world. Given the overwhelming outpour of new emerging talent, it can be hard to stay up to date. Here are a few of the best acts right now who you might have missed.

Lancey Foux  

It would be easy on first listen to write off Lancey Foux as another Carti clone, as he appears to follow the same ‘Rage-Hop’ formula brewing with artists like Ken Carson. However, it becomes pretty apparent that his style is much more versatile than most give him credit for; his music is vary versatile and is not restricted to just being just of one style. On the one hand, you have the extremely psychedelic cuts like ‘INDIA’ which is focuses more on creating an atmosphere, and while the lyrics on this particular track may not be very substantive, they make it up in energy and delivery. The other side to Lancey is extremely brash, hard-hitting and most importantly, absolutely banging. Songs like ‘Steelo Flow’ see Lancey focus more on his flow and lyricism while also flexing his luxury lifestyle. This could be viewed as a cop-out topic for most rappers but with this style of industrial production and the incredible energy that Lancey brings through his delivery, it’s hard not to enjoy this track and his music. 

Pink Pantheress

If you have been on social media for the past year or so, it is almost certain you would have encountered at least one song from PinkPantherss. She has had a spectacular rise to fame mainly due to TikTok, which is where she originally blew up by uploading snippets of her songs to her account in 2021. Her account garnered a huge amount of attention which transferred to her Spotify, where she has been pulling insane numbers of streams. ‘Pain’, her biggest single, now has over 200 million streams, and ‘Break it Off’ , over 140 million, not bad for a 21-year-old. Sonically PinkPantherss is most comparable to artists in the ‘bedroom pop’ scene, a subgenre of pop that is led most notably by people like Clairo, Conan Grey and many more. She also draws inspiration from the ‘drum and bass’ scene, a UK-born genre of mainly rave music, which gives her music a danceable quality to them. Despite this her music usually delves into sadder themes such as heartbreak and lost love. This year it seems like PinkPantherss has let off the gas a bit, only releasing a few singles this year, 2 of them being collaborative efforts with the likes of Lil Uzi Vert and Willow but this will surely only be a minor breather in this stars meteoric career, so watch this space.

Lausse the Cat 

Despite being on hiatus and potentially never hearing music from him again, I find it hard to not mention Lausse the Cat on an article of the most underrated artists in the UK. The music he put out seems so modern and fresh despite most of it being released 4 years ago, showing just how ahead of the time he was production-wise. Lausse has only ever put out 1 album, ‘The Girl, the Cat and the Tree’. This follows him as a cat journeying through the dark alleys of London, causing mischief, breaking girls’ hearts, dealing with a crippling addiction to substances and alcohol before ultimately paying the price for leading this life of hedonism. The album’s dark and twisted subject matter is layered upon the beautiful lo-fi production which seems like an unlikely combo but work out in spades when matched together. Lausse has also released many singles like the 8-minute epic ‘Redstripe Rhapsody, a song about the happiness that alcohol and partying brings him, comparing one experience of this with being transported into the ‘Garden of the Moon’ coincided with a strange voicing asking him to ‘leave his soul’ before entering, potentially referring to a near death experience. These are just a few examples within his catalogue that is full of amazing lyricism and genre-bending production. I could drone on and on about him, but instead I will let the music do the talking. 

Slowthai 

If you have been keeping up with alternative music at all over the past 5 years, I would be pretty surprised if you had never heard of Slowthai. Slowthai (AKA Tyron Frampton) has managed to collaborate with a whole slew of talent from across the music spectrum, from the Gorillaz and James Blake to A$AP Rocky and Skepta. He burst onto the scene with a bang back in 2018 with T N Biscuits, a grimy look into Tyron’s life in Northampton and his upbringing of violence and illicit activities. A year later in 2019 he released ‘Nothing Great About Britain’, a haunting yet hilarious dive yet again into Tyron’s upbringing and the looming political problems at the time, a theme that is prevalent throughout his catalogue. The album was met with critical acclaim across the board, even garnering nominations for ‘Best New Rap Album’ at the NME awards in 2020. However at the NME’s Slowthai would behave extremely poorly, making lewd comments towards one of the hosts, drinking excessively and even confronting an audience member while very drunk. This situation very much tarnished his reputation, sending him into a downward spiral with his mental health that had already been struggling since he suffered greatly with substance abuse. Roughly a year after these events Slowthai would release another album, ‘Tyron’, which on first listen was much more mature than his earlier work, showing a different side to him that we had never seen before. The album also being named after his real name signified that this would be a metamorphosis of some kind for him. Songs like ‘feel away’ are a far cry away from where he was just 2 years ago, being much more mellow and even including a beautiful verse from James Blake. However the bangers that Slowthai was known for were not lost; songs like ‘MAZZA’ are just as hard-hitting as his older work, just now with a hint of more maturity. He has not released music since 2021 due to him taking a step back from music to care of his son, but I truly hope that this hiatus does end soon and he can come back on the same excellent form.

By Seb Zabarte