Lethally Fast

Everything this boy says is snappy, fast freestyle; every sentence crying out for a crunching beat. "I've been rappin' since I was like six years old," he spits down the phone, "and I was in this record store in Essex, Brickhouse Records, they were playing this mixtape. I was like 'Woooah! that's mad'. 'That's a local guy, Destruction', they said."

Destruction was running a pirate radio show and DJing at the time, so the two logically hooked up, combing dope beats and razor-sharp skits with deadly aplomb. Hip hop is Lethal's lifeblood, in any shape or form, be it UK, US or French, but as he tells us, he simply loves music. "I'm a hip hop kid at heart, but I like all kinds," he says, before bursting into a spitfire rundown of reggae, ragga, breakbeat, to new jack swing. Though they take in all these influences, their debut album, The Journey, snaps with the furious swagger of London grime and contains some of the nastiest bangers heard in years: So What and England I Know brim with big nasty beats and punchy choruses that showcase a caustic attitude to the world at large. "England I Know man, it's like looking at the TV and our surroundings and this bad break the country's going through at the moment," declares Lethal, adding, "but at the same time I'm dead proud of the music we [the UK] make and the influence we've had on music across the world, you know what I'm saying?"

The Journey is England through and through, no doubt about that, and showcases skits from Tor and Skibadee as well as production from the ridiculously young Bounca. It's also released on their own Bleak House Records, a homegrown (Dickens, for Christ's sake!) stable to watch, with Destruction's Breaking Point mixtape due out, as well as Lethal's record under the Harry Shotta moniker. With so much going on, it makes sense that Lethal runs at such a pace; "Get me on a roll and it just comes off," he says. These boys are on a roll, sure enough, a new force to be reckoned with on the UK scene.