Initially much of the UK rap scene was dependent on American imports of both records and tapes but also the clothes (Wranglers, Kangols, Fila), the breakdancing and the graffiti-styles that formed such important pillars of hip hop in the US. If UK musicians used rap it was often in slavish imitation of American archetypes, as an effect of pop (Adam & The Ants ‘Ant Rap’), or in novelty records like Morris Minor’s ‘Stutter Rap’. The growth of hard-core rap in the US with Run DMC and Def Jam records in the mid-80s gave UK rap the confidence to take the form back to its own streets and start telling its own stories in its own unique way. Fledgling pioneer British rappers and crews like Derek B, London Posse, the Cookie Crew and Monie Love, Sindecut, Demon Boyz, DJ Newtrament, and Ruthless Rap Assassins bought the pressures and tensions of the UK streets to the form of rap, often blending in a heavy reggae and dancehall influence from the soundsystem cultures of its mainly Afro-Caribbean audience.  Rappers like Black Radical MKII took on the explosive lessons of Public Enemy and applied them ruthlessly to Britain’s own colonial history. As the 80s turned into the 90s, an increasing amount of British rappers started firmly rejecting any attempt by UK rap to mimic its US counterpart. This new scene, dubbed ‘Britcore’ included crews like Hijack, Gunshot and artists like Silver Bullet and Son Of Noise – their raucous music was a million miles away from the more polished productions emerging from the American west-coast at the time, and featured lightspeed-fast rhyming heavily laced with Jamaican patois and influenced by early UK soundsystem toasters like Papa Levi and the Saxon Sound crew.

The explosion in breakbeat and rave in the late 80s and early 90s was not only influenced by UK rap but actually took many of the original UK rap artists away into more dance-based (and lucrative) forms like jungle, trip-hop and drum’n’bass. As the 90s dawned hip hop in the UK found a sharper political edge – events like the Broadwater Farm riots gave many UK rappers a flashpoint to fire their angst with police and an overtly racist society. Crucially late 80s rap in the UK was so vibrant and so fast moving it finally found itself embedded as a culture with its own unique networks and self-sustaining spaces. UK rap finally had its own clubs – from its centre-point in Ladbroke Grove and Soho clubs like the Wag and the Limelight, as well as major events like the UK Fresh festival, the culture found itself cropping up in Bristol, Manchester, Nottingham, Leeds – anywhere, where disaffected youth in love with US hip hop wanted to hear a high-energy aggressive UK twist on the form. It had its own radio presence through pirate stations like Kiss and Rinse as well as DJs like Tim Westwood. It had its own dedicated record-shops like Mr Bongos.  It had its own press with magazines like Hip Hop Connection and fanzines like Fat Lace. It finally was avoiding the temptations of major labels to create its own imprints like Music Of Life, Low Life, Kold Sweat, Vinyl Solution and Big Dada records. By the mid-90s, UK rap had firmly established itself as here to stay and the on-going explosion of artists, labels and scenes has continued to this day, exerting a huge influence on the grime and UK-drill scenes that now occupy that central space to young disaffected UK kids. By both interpreting and refuting the dictates of US hip hop, UK rap has found its own distinctive voice and unique sound.

Long may it rage.