Novelist has been described as both a maverick and the ‘new face of grime’ by DJ Logan Sama. As of today, he has already released 3 projects this year which, for any artist, is an insanely quick succession of releases. His newest album Rain Fire was released on 14th April with 6 tracks and many features.

Novelist has been emerging as a Grime MC for a few years now. He first gained attention in the UK underground music scene back in 2013 when he was just 16, Novelist clashed with Wiley’s brother Cadell when they went head to head in ‘Who’s Da Boss 2’. Just a year after that Novelist was nominated for best Grime act at the 2014 MOBO Awards, losing out to none other than Stormzy.

He has a very distinctive style, which can be recognised as a deep, dark bass with catchy lyrics. This rings true with songs from the album such as ‘Investing’ and ‘Wanna War’. Yet the track ‘Seen It All Before’ shows that he has a softer side, as this heartfelt song is all about his personal life.

‘Rain Fire’ is full of features, including collaborations with popular British rappers Raj Forever and MC Tigz. More surprising is the feature from Big Twins. Big Twins is an American artist from New York. The track ‘In It To Last’ makes you wonder if collaborations between UK and US artists will continue and give the UK scene the chance to grow. We have been increasingly seeing these types of collaborations with the likes of Skepta and A$AP Rocky on ‘Praise The Lord’ as the UK grime scene has been catching the attention of popular hip hop artists all over the world. And most notably when Kanye West appeared at The Brit Awards in 2015 to debut ‘All Day’ he invited multiple UK grime artists, including Novelist to join him on stage. That performance really propelled the UK music scene into the limelight.

Novelist works fast, and fans are amazed at how quickly he is producing music and putting it out into the world. He initially dropped an album called ‘Inferno’ in January; this was followed by an EP called ‘Heat’ that was inspired by the 1995 De-Niro starring crime film of the same name. He got fellow artist Shailan to collaborate with him and the EP was recorded, mixed and produced in Novelist’s BMW. And finally, just this week he released ‘Rain Fire’. This is all a part of a project that he calls 52 weeks Of Fire, in which he has pledged to release something that he has produced every Friday until the end of the year. If you can expect a new track next week, then you best get listening to ‘Rain Fire’ now!

Researcher: Levi Hudlin, @levihudlin