Rimzee

With an aspirational, street-level perspective, impassioned rhymes and a fierce delivery, East London's Rimzee has become a soundtrack of the struggle. Born to a single mother in Upper Clapton in 1991, he began getting attention after putting together his first freestyles in the late 2000s. In 2010, he broke out with "2010 Freestyle", a soulful track filled with matter-of-fact death threats and dense imagery of life on the streets. By 2012, he parlayed that success into a sizable buzz before unloading The Upper Clapton Dream, a project laced with vicious freestyles and anthems for other block-dwellers from around the country. After spending six-and-a-half years in prison for shooting at an unmarked police car, Rimzee returned with Upper Clapton Dream 2, an equally relentless project that marked his return to rap prominence, a destination reached through a healthy mix of lived experience, passion and craftsmanship.