Just as American hip hop’s east coast/west coast factions learned to embrace the different accents of rappers from the Deep South and beyond, so London is becoming slightly less dominant in the UK rap scene.
A large space has already been cleared for Bugzy Malone from Manchester, and now Mist is on a mission to make people take the Brummie accent seriously. You may already have heard him guesting on Fisherman, from J Hus’s hit album Common Sense.
This month he cracked the top 40 for the first time on his own with his cocky single Game Changer, from a new nine-track EP titled Diamond in the Dirt. The video has had over three million views in a fortnight, and this seems to be his great strength.
It seems him strutting shirtless around a mansion, steering a speedboat and most impressively, cruising over the plains of Kenya in a branded hot air balloon. His earlier single Hot Property won Best Video at last November’s MOBO Awards and found him driving huskies and rapping on top of a plane wreck in Iceland.
His biggest London gig next month will surely be less spectacular, but there’s no denying that on screen and on record, he’s going places.
March 15, O2 Forum Kentish Town, NW5 (0844 847 2405, o2forumkentishtown.co.uk)