M Huncho

When M Huncho delivered a “Fire in the Booth” freestyle for Charlie Sloth’s Rap Show on Apple Music, he was adamant about being “an artist, not a rapper”. After all, he asked, “There’s a difference between being rich and wealthy, isn’t there?” Whatever the state of his bank balance, the anonymous, masked North London talent clearly possesses an inexhaustible supply of creative energy. Huncho broke through the crowded UK drill scene in 2017 with an acclaimed performance on Mixtape Madness’ online freestyle series, Mad About Bars, effortlessly unspooling melodic, singsong verses in the style he calls “trapwave”. On his debut EP, 2017’s Get Out, he emphasized the wave-y half of that formulation, forsaking drill’s standard triplets for hypnotic Auto-Tuned verses woven into synth-slicked beats. His debut album, 2019’s Utopia, ventured even further into the realm of eerie, neon-streaked atmosphere. No matter how vibey Huncho’s music is, though, his lyrical foundation is rock solid. On “Fire in the Booth”, he held forth for more than eight minutes, sketching out hard-luck street-life stories in dizzying internal rhymes, without ever giving away too much of his intensely guarded persona. “Keep my business very private, mind your business, just be silent,” indeed.