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AJ Tracey: ‘I had to do everything on my own’

2019 has been the UK rapper’s breakout year. He talks about how drum’n’bass informed his style – and why Boris Johnson is ‘a very small man’

"Yo, it’s the hyperman set, AJ Tracey, live and direct!” Roll down a car window or scroll the radio dial over the past few months and Ladbroke Grove, the no-frills garage tune by the west London rapper, will have no doubt been making the speakers shake. Tracey’s track, with its pitched-up sample from soul singer Jorja Smith, cut through all the season’s Latin-flavoured pop, functional house and endless Ed Sheeran singles and still sits, unbudged, in the charts, a feelgood summer hit that refuses to accept that autumn is here.

Tracey, whose real name is Ché (after Guevara) Wolton Grant, though he usually goes by his stage name, has been having a breakthrough year. In February, he self-released his debut album, which has since become the second-biggest album of 2019 by an independent musician; to cap it off, he’s playing two sold-out nights at the 10,000-capacity venue Alexandra Palace next month.

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