Watch every episode of Meet the MC
Meet the MC is our latest DJ Mag Originals video series, combining a freestyle platform with in-depth fly-on-the-wall interviews, exploring the stories of these crucial lyricists. Watch every episode of Meet the MC, so far, below
This page will be updated as new episodes land.
Meet the MC is our new DJ Mag Originals series, introducing the most vital artists in rap. Combining a freestyle series with in-depth fly-on-the-wall interviews, Meet the MC explores the stories of these crucial lyricists.
Celebrating an exciting time for the scene, each episode is filmed across multiple locations, ranging from childhood settings to studios, on-location video shoots and more, before culminating with an exclusive freestyle from each MC.
You can read all the details of the launch of the series with D Double E, Br3nya and Backroad Gee here and watch every episode of Meet the MC, so far, below.
Backroad Gee, the London-based UK rap artist best known for his hit, 'Party Popper', has the kind of voice that makes you stop what you’re doing and listen.
The East London-born artist has spun himself a formidable reputation through his blistering blend of grime, dancehall and drill, with tracks like ‘Party Popper’ and Pa Salieu collaboration ‘My Family’ gaining cult street anthem status. If there’d been live shows in 2020, you can guarantee BackRoad Gee would have enjoyed reload after reload.
It takes talent to flourish during a global health crisis, and BackRoad Gee’s unorthodox flow is the key ingredient in his success: at times it sounds like he’s rapping exclusively in ad-libs, using plosive sounds like gunshots. His verse on the remix of Gully’s ‘Ying Dat’ is one example of this, a series of rapid-fire vocal utterances.
Rather than fixate on elaborate wordplay like some of his peers, BackRoad Gee’s charm is in his energy and unpredictability. He’ll pepper his lyrics with the native tongue of his Congolese parents, Lingala, or drop in some words from French and Arabic, languages he’s studied on YouTube. These linguistic switch-ups mean that — to the casual listener — at times he sounds almost possessed on the mic.
In this episode of Meet the MC, we join Backroad Gee in the studio, and he takes us to the location of the video for 'Party Popper'.
In this episode, the West London MC takes us to her North London studio, and on a tour of the area of the city she grew up in. Of the raft of female MCs coming through in the UK right now, Br3nya is a legit standout, coupling her dexterous flow with a wonderfully playful energy. She first made waves in 2018 with infectious cut ‘Good Food’, which set the template for her heady fusion of rap from both sides of the Atlantic with elements of Afro- swing.
Br3nya credits her Ghanaian heritage as the source of her sound’s distinctive bounce. She tells DJ Mag, “The bounciness and good vibe in my music comes from my Ghanaian side. I’m not doing songs fully in my language or stuff like that yet, but you can definitely hear the influence and the vibe. It’s not direct, but you can see it’s the root of where everything came from.”
Real name Darren Dixon, D Double E is UK rap royalty, once described by Skepta as the "greatest of all time".
A child of soundsystem culture; rap, reggae, jungle, grime, bashment... the entire lineage of Black British music can be found weaving its way through D Double E’s idiosyncratic sound. To trace the Newham MC back to his source is to track the history of soundsystem culture, right back to his parents’ record collection.
Although often hailed as a “grime OG”, D Double sees things differently. He’s long since outgrown any old parameters once attached to his music. In fact, his most recent album ‘D.O.N (Double Or Nothing)’ — as with the recent output of many of his contemporaries like Skepta, Ghetts and Jammer — draws on almost the entire UK musical spectrum, from rap to trap to drill, all blended into something indefinable and more fluid.
The winner of DJ Mag’s Best of British Awards Best Rap Album in 2020, ‘D.O.N (Double Or Nothing)’, also featured D Double’s first production credits on an album. Although he started producing in 2006, it was only after returning to beatmaking in 2018 that he decided to spit on his own beats. He made the beat for his own Meet The MC freestyle, which follows him speaking about his famous ad libs, pirate radio, growing up in east London and much more in a series of interviews filmed on location.
