This article is taken from the spring 2025 issue of Dazed. Buy a copy of the magazine here.

London shifts direction like the wind. On a seemingly weekly basis, high streets change, music venues shutter and independent businesses cling on for dear life against endless apartment-block constructions. As inequality continues to rise in tandem with soaring living costs, prospects feel increasingly bleak, leaving many young people questioning what we have to look forward to.

Perhaps we can take heart from the fact that Britain has always created innovative art in spite of – and often in response to – its precarious socioeconomic circumstances. Lover’s rock was the soundtrack to the Caribbean community making a home for themselves in the UK in the 1970s. In the early 90s, jungle underscored a generation disillusioned by years of Thatcherite cuts to government spending. Grime was the defiant spirit of the city’s council estates bursting through speakers. Now, as we find ourselves at the midpoint of a decade that has seen the unprecedented become a new precedent, one can’t help but wonder what the soundtrack to the whirlwind of the late 2020s will be.

Across the UK, a new wave of artists seem determined to make their voices heard despite the austerity-shaped weapons aimed at them. By doing things their own way, they are creating a scene so vibrant it is beginning to transcend the borders of these isles. The generation that was robbed of precious years by COVID is also resilient enough to deal with its hangover. Accustomed to high quantities of screen time, they have the ability, through some sort of alchemy, to turn brainrot into bangers, anthems of a culture that will not go silently. Thanks to the boundless nature of the digital realm, they are turning global sounds into internet-shredding touchstones.

The web has afforded new ways to foster connections with listeners. The pirate radio antennas and youth clubs of eras past have been traded for Discord servers, while hungry fans are fed snatches of music via Instagram live and TikTok. But don’t get it twisted: the movement exists beyond the URL. Artists like south London rapper Len have sold out shows at Village Underground and Electric Ballroom and if you step in the right parties, you’ll witness their songs being recited bar for bar by revellers. A thriving eco- system spanning the scenes around brands like Peak Television, collectives like the Lost Boys, and radio stations like Victory Lap, this movement is redefining what it means to be young in Britain.

At Dazed’s cover shoot – shot both in the studio and outdoors – the camaraderie between musicians is palpable: they share thoughts on how to elevate each other’s outfits, and acknowledge their unique styles. Conversations span from Zino Vinci and Jim Legxacy debating WWE lore to others discussing music-industry deal structures (and various offers currently on the table). As kwes e’s shoot is taking place outside an industrial park in Walthamstow, a confused onlooker shouts, “What’s going on here?” from his car, perplexed by the scramble of Ghanaian flags, skateboards and cameras. 

For the group shots, the artists shuffle into formation, debating who between them deserves a height boost before striking their poses. Photographer Campbell Addy advises them to own their space in front of his lens – otherwise “you will be forgotten”, he says. Singing each other’s songs passionately as they play in the background, the mutual support is clear. “I’d compare the scene to X-Men,” says Vinci, highlighting the sense that this group are united by their idiosyncrasies. The comparison seems apt: from Chy Cartier’s spirited deliveries over gritty hoodtrap instrumentals to Niko B’s absurd one-liners over lilting beats and Jim Legxacy’s thrilling fusion of contradictory genres, each member of this new wave brings something original to the table. But however you choose to characterise them – and, hell, who cares anyway? – it won’t be long before the rest of the world is engulfed by their noise too.

VICTORY LAP

It takes various moving parts for a scene to flourish. From bloggers to photographers, DJs and directors, a whole infrastructure needs to be put in place to help talented artists be seen and heard – and the contri- butions of those who provide them with a platform should not go unmentioned. With the advent of social media and streaming platforms, music stations like MTV or Channel U – once essential hubs of discovery for music nerds and budding noisemakers alike – have largely been lost.

Enter, Victory Lap. Started as a passion project by photographer Joseph McDermott and friends during an inspired trip to New York, Victory Lap has become the de facto radio station of the UK hip hop underground. Known for seamlessly blending the established with the emerging, the station’s ethos was illustrated by a recent broadcast that saw Dave and Central Cee share the mic with the likes of Rushy, BXKS, Niko B and Kibo. “It was [always] a goal to be a platform that acted as a bridge between old and new, says McDermott,” who hopes to take the format international, driven by a desire to “make the things we’d love to see as fans of music”. The Victory Lap, it seems, has only just begun.

YT

Music fans are accustomed to hearing from rappers who clashed with institutions of learning: defying the expectations of teachers who never believed in them, skipping school, or dropping out of it entirely. YT – the Harry Potter of British hip hop – is at odds with this stereotype, and proudly so. He often compares his “double life” at Oxford University – one that balanced academia with music-making and playing shows – to Hannah Montana’s, a duality he explored, hilariously, in the music video for his track “The One (Just Got My Degree)”, which was shot between his graduation ceremony and a Lost Boys boat party in London. Aside from his academic background (before Oxford, he attended a prestigious boarding school where “nobody was doing anything creative”), his parents’ strict religious values prohibited secular music being played in the family home.

Inspired by the wave of underground rap that flooded Soundcloud in 2016, YT produced his first track on his mum’s laptop. “I just fell in love with the feeling,” he recalls of the process. Forming a tribe of like-minded collaborators, YT made a string of tapes with the likes of Len (a double single), kwes e and CMillano, and became a member of keygen, a digital collective comprising kwes e, YT and Canterbury producer Phil named after a tool that allowed them to ‘crack’ music production software. Having struck gold with the nostalgic, jerk-infused hits “Black & Tan” and “Prada or Celine”, YT unapologetically leans on what he describes as the “unified common experience” of being young, alive and online today. As fans await the release of his forthcoming mixtape, Oi, 2025 could be the year he graduates to another level entirely.

NIKO B

Although the term ‘world-building’ has become a buzzword peddled by A&Rs and other industry professionals, Niko B truly embodies the notion. Born Tom Austin, the Milton Keynes native has always enjoyed making things. In his teens, his clothing brand CROWD provided an outlet for him to explore and fall in love with all parts of the creative process, from graphic design to photography and filmmaking. “I wanted to make a music video but didn’t really know anyone who made music in Milton Keynes, so I thought, ‘Fuck it, I’ll make a song,’” he says of his enjoyably cartoonish take on UK rap. (“In the music video for ‘Mary Berry’ I’m wearing only CROWD so people could see that I make clothes as well,” he says cheekily.) Once you step into his whimsical world, it feels like every element of Niko B’s creativity is in conversation, powered by the simple ethos of “making things that I’m a fan of”.

Looking ahead, he sees himself expanding beyond the obvious: “TV is the one,” he says, before describing how he would love to create the theme song to his own sketch show and even start a restaurant: “I could design the menu and the logo and the plates... I could combine everything. I don’t want to grow up and wish I’d done something – I’m making sure I’m doing it all now.” Observing the community on the set of his Dazed shoot, he references the title of his 2024 debut album, dog eat dog food world: “Nobody is trying to one-up each other, and everyone is focused on their bowl of dog food.”

BXKS

In the first Victory Lap session in the new NTS office, BXKS emerged, Kangol cap and shades in tow. “Luton where the sky stays grey,” she spat, her words cutting through with characteristic clarity. But for all her swagger, BXKS’s story is far from usual. Raised in the same Pentecostal church that birthed a host of musicians she’d later call peers (Tiana Major9, we’re looking at you), the choir was BXKS’s introduction to music. After being drawn to freestyles on Radar Radio, she soon traded hymns and harmonies for flows and punchlines. Honing her craft by freestyling in her head, BXKS eventually put pen to paper, to the bemusement of her friends. “They were mad confused, but I was never unsure,” she recalls. She credits her fusion of elements – a grime cadence against clean, beat-driven instrumentals – to her regular producers, TK the Producer and Rambo.

Also affiliated with collectives such as Play Piem (she filmed the video for “Back It Up” at one of their parties), she speaks highly of the scene she finds herself in now. “If someone wins, it’s a win for everyone... it was nice to have another girl do her ting [too],” she says, referring to Chy Cartier’s appearance at the Victory Lap session. “We need balance.”With a headline show in Tokyo under her belt (poetic, given her Instagram handle, @bxksintokyo), the globe will soon catch up to BXKS and her lightning bars.

JIM LEGXACY

Jim Legxacy’s music navigates what it means to grow up Black and British in the 21st century. Drawing on an eclectic range of pop-culture influences from the Technicolor chaos of 90s WWF – as seen in his video for “Block Hug”– to the sonics and storyboards of British drill group 67, his music cuts through the crowded British hip hop landscape. Inspired to make his own music after hearing Kanye West’s The Life of Pablo, early tracks saw him focus on rapping before he taught himself to sing over lockdown. Frustrated that he couldn’t find instrumentals that suited him and feeling held back by his knowledge and skillset (“I never knew people who struggled finding their sound,” he laughs), he taught himself to produce. Never one to shy away from vulnerability, he says that music “is the way I’m able to process emotions”.

Borrowing elements from a range of genres – “a product of wanting to hear everything” – he taps everything from the percussive urgency of Afrobeats to the purring guitar licks of midwestern emo. His upcoming project, Black British Music (abbreviated to BBM), explores life in London in 2025, throwing, says Legxacy half-jokingly, “Akala, Equiano, Smartwhip and weed” into a Great British blender. Jim doesn’t share any lofty aspirations for the future, beyond taking his sound and visuals “as far as I can while staying true to myself”

ASHBECK

After casually uploading a handful of songs originally recorded as voice memos to Soundcloud one day and receiving a noticeable number of streams, Ashbeck and his schoolmate El Londo decided to start making music together properly. “I could actually form a verse [when I was] just messing around,” Ashbeck recalls. While a career in music was never the intention, the creative partnership between the pair blossomed – aided, the Londoner hypothesises, by the fact that they “were friends before music”. Having established himself as a key player in the city’s emergent underground rap scene, Ashbeck relishes the freewheeling independence of professional musicianship: “I don’t like being told what to do when it comes to my music,” he says.

Despite being considered a torchbearer of the much-maligned chill UK rap tag, Ashbeck prefers to exist beyond labels: “People can call it whatever,” he says, “I just call my shit cruck music.” His tag ‘crucked it’, derived from a slang term used among Ashbeck’s friends, is representative of a broader movement. Taking inspiration from the likes of A$AP Mob, Cruck Records is a loose collective under which their music is made. Constantly finding inspiration across genres, from R&B to deep house, Ashbeck aspires to the achievements of figures like Larry June, who built a creative movement around his schoolhood friendship circle. Until then, Ashbeck is keeping it cool, and crucked.

KWES E

Boasting ancient cathedrals, tunnels and castles, the leafy city of Canterbury in Southeast England is home to numerous UNESCO World Heritage sites, attracting tourists from all over the world. Unbeknownst to many of these tourists though, there is a generation forging a fresh cultural heritage in the city, with Kwes E at the forefront. Having moved from Ghana aged 5, he has always worn his heritage with pride despite sticking out in a city that was far less cosmopolitan than nearby London. 

In his late teens, after discovering the music equipment his friend’s auntie had stashed away, he started producing his own beats, influenced by the likes of Nas and more contemporary underground rappers like Lucki. Kwes and friends at his boys’ grammar school started experimenting with music before realising the girls at the school next door – artists like PinkPantheress and MaZz – were making waves of their own.

“Since we were all making music, we just started a collective called Escape Plan. Making music made me realise how important collectives are,” he says, as evidenced by the music video for “juggin”, which features multiple cameos from friends and fellow artists and currently has more than 200,000 views on YouTube. “It’s nice to know that it came from me shouting my people on my ‘Close Friends’,” he reflects. Beyond rapping, kwes’s role as a music engineer has not only taught him the importance of “simplicity” when creating music, but allowed him to tap his community. As we speak, he is in the process of engineering YT’s upcoming project, Oi. The future’s bright for kwes e, who envisions friends and family with “flowers in hand, living comfortably” in the years to come.

CHY CARTIER

While many of us spend our teens and 20s trying to figure out our life’s purpose, some are blessed to have known what they were born to do from a young age. “I recorded my first song at 11,” says the confident north London rapper, Chy Cartier, whose moniker speaks to the creative pressure she still imposes on herself today: “You know, pressure makes diamonds,” she says. Sonically, she sits at the crossroads of her earliest influences, from Nicki Minaj and Lil’ Kim to Meek Mill and Rick Ross. It’s an alchemy she has truly made her own – just scan YouTube for the various Chy Cartier-type beats on offer. “They’ve been studying!” she laughs. Her inimitable style has earned Chy some high-profile gig spots, including one at Boiler Room’s collaborative event with the club night Recess, and an appearance on stage with Nines at a recent O2 Arena show.

Beyond music, her presence is being felt in the zeitgeist, notably after an appearance in the Corteiz trailer for their latest trainer collaboration with Nike. Fashion is a world that the rapper sees herself exploring more this year (“I’m getting into my fashion bag in 2025,” she promises). Alongside other female musicians who’ve made big strides in the world of UK rap such as Little Simz, her current inspirations are Pharrell and Skepta, artists who expand their creativity beyond one medium. For fans waiting on more music from Chy, we have good news: expect at least one new mixtape this year. “It was originally meant to be an EP,” she reveals. “But there were too many songs.”

ZINO VINCI

In his vivid prose and the rich album artwork he designs himself, Newham’s Zino Vinci is a generation-defining storyteller. After moving to London from Germany at an early age, he struggled to assimilate, and felt, as he does today, the consummate creative outsider: “I gave up trying to fit in,” he says, who preferred comics to football in school. The artist found refuge in these printed stories, and soon developed an urge to tell his own. After drawing for a long time and discovering Photoshop at the age of 11, he started making stop-motion clips on his dad’s camera, with dreams of one day making his own anime film. Soon, hip hop – and specifically the comic-book references of Wu-Tang Clan – emboldened Vinci to try his hand at rapping, and he combined the skills he acquired from a degree in illustration to animate a music video for an early song, “Real Thicc”.

Drawing further inspiration from the likes of Kendrick, Common and Nas, today his lyrics drive right into the heart of Newham, east London, where he lives now. “It’s sink or swim and you have to swim,” he says of the borough. “Everyone is so different here, but we have that connection.” He draws strength from the area’s many cultural alumni, from music hall-of-famers like Kano, Ghetts and J Hus to actors like Danny Dyer and Idris Elba. The DIY outsider that Vinci became in childhood is still the offbeat multihyphen- ate he is today, and his strange and otherworldly comic-book rap is all the better for it. 

Hair ISAAC POLEON at THE WALL GROUP, make-up MATA MARIELLE at THE WALL GROUP, set design IBBY NJOYA at NEW SCHOOL REPRESENTS, photographic assistants JAMES DONOVAN, JAMES GILBERT, GEORGE HUTTON, styling assistant JAIME RENO, JOEL DE LEON RUIZ, hair assistants ANA VERONICA TORRES, LEE-ANNE WILLOUX, make-up assistants DOLLI OKORIKO, TAHIYAH ALI, set design assistants AXEL DRURY, AURELIE SIMON, digital operator KERIMCAN GOREN, production RAGI DHOLAKIA PRODUCTIONS, production assistants TOM BECK, SZILARD ORBAN, post-production TOUCH DIGITAL, talent consultant JOSEPH MCDERMOTT.

This story features in the spring 2025 issue of Dazed, which is on sale internationally on 6 March 2025. Buy a copy of the magazine here.