Welcome to JP’s UK Culture Picks—a continuation of my UK Culture Heroes list—where I share what I’m rating in the UK music and culture space each month. Expect everything from my favourite tracks and albums of the month to random YouTube finds, fire food spots, and club night recommendations. You can find me on IG: @josephjppatterson.
Bouncer, and UK rap media’s new wave…
A new rap media movement is bubbling in the UK, and I am just as intrigued as I am concerned about where this could go. Having closely documented the Black British music scene for the past two decades via written (and, as of late, video) journalism, and earning my spot in the game as a trusted voice and tastemaker, I think it’s only right that I share my opinion online like I’ve been doing offline, with people near and far asking me what I make of it all.
Let me say this: being a journalist myself, one who taught himself everything from scratch—i.e. no college education or uni degree—I will always put more value on real, text-book journalists and documentarians over everything else. I would rather read an in-depth, written artist profile than watch said artist act up (sometimes a fool) on somebody’s Twitch stream. That’s not to say I don’t watch streamers; I think some of them are dope, and I believe everything has its place. I also like when things are based on truth, and when Black British artists are documented with care, especially when a number of mainstream platforms have continued to fail them over the years. But as a millennial, I have come to understand that my way isn’t necessarily the way for Gen Z today—they like their media fast, and sometimes furious.
Similar to how it is in the States right now, where content creators have become the new critics—with the likes of Kai Cenat, DJ Akademiks and Anthony Fantano now the go-tos for opinions on music—for the past two years, a new wave of figures have also stepped in and changed the face of UK music media. For me, Mimi The Music Blogger and Flashy Sillah are at the top of this tree. Mimi, who used to write regularly for Complex UK, backs-up her takes with facts because she understands the importance of it, and this is why she can move as freely in journalist spaces as she can among the biggest content creators. Flashy Sillah, meanwhile, approaches things with a block-boy energy, like that brazenly blunt guy from ends whose takes can make you reconsider your whole life. Armani TakeRisks also does a great job at articulating his super-stern points—he’s here to give you the reals, no. holds. barred., and could care less if he’s not invited to those tired parties if you don’t like it. And then you have young writers like Naz Hamdi and Niall Smith, who are the true superstars and future of this thing.
On the other side of that, you have figures like Bouncer—a former music manager who now drops daily videos from his spot in Dubai about the most trivial of things in the UK rap scene. For some reason, Bouncer doesn’t think I rate him, but I actually appreciate his dedication to his craft. He’s currently being touted as “the UK’s answer to DJ Akademiks”, and I can see why: his content is clickbaity, there to make the most amount of noise. But just like Trap Lore Ross—he is NOT a journalist. His job is to stir the pot, sometimes with the ingredients of facts not always included, but the love he has for the scene is evident, and I have to respect it. BillyTheGoat I see pop up on my feed quite a lot. I doubt his content’s made to be seen by an old-head like me, but from what I have seen—similar to Mimi and Flashy Sillah, his views, though controversial, are always backed up by truth. So whether the content is for me or not, he’ll always get a salute.
Tankz is a name I’ve only heard over the past few weeks, but there’s a community of people who clearly enjoy his gossip-like content… He has his place, as does Young Spray’s RTM Podcast and pages like @ukrapnumbers, @blackkingsuk, @madeyouthink and @opinionatedyute. They have each built their own platforms, on their own terms (RTM is on 4m+ views a month, for example) and we, as consumers, have the choice to either engage with them or not—it’s that simple. But as these guys continue to make BIG bank from their platforms, when it’s all said and done, my hope is that the scene will be all the better because of them… Not worse.
Is “Cry” by Swiss and Sharifa the greatest UK rap song of all time? I think so…
“Cry” is what you would call a perfectly-made rap tune: from the soul-stirring production and the soulful wails, to the Black-centred topics Swiss tackles on it, “Cry” has transcended generations—a track that continues to speak to the hearts and souls of Black youngsters both near and far. Released in 2005 (during the height of 8-bar grime), I remember watching the video for “Cry” on Channel U (R.I.P) and it hitting home unlike anything I had heard before it. Being young and Black from South London, you see and hear a lot as a kid, and with me being 17 years old when this came out—that age where you’re deciding which path to choose in life—“Cry” impacted me in a serious way: it inspired me to look at my surroundings from a different viewpoint and aim for more, similar to how Bashy’s “Black Boys” made a lot of us feel back then. So, is “Cry” the greatest UK rap song of all time? Well, to me it is, and I’m sure I’m not the only one.
Album Of The Month: On ‘Spectrum’, Donae’O shines a light on soundsystem culture whilst tackling themes of love, faith, and being on the spectrum
Donae’O hasn’t failed us yet when it comes to summer bangers—and bangers in general. From his early garage and grime era, with tracks like 2003’s “My Philosophy (Bounce)”, to dominating UK funky in the late-00s with gems like “Party Hard” and “African Warrior”, the singer, MC and producer has blessed Black British music with classics that sound as fresh today as they did back then. With his new album, Spectrum, the North-West London legend touches on faith, love and being neurodivergent, underpinned by sounds from across the soundsystem culture spectrum—from dancehall through to drum & bass. Easily an Album Of The Year contender, throw on “Nights Like This” (with Omar, Lemar and the House Gospel Choir) for your daily dose of upliftment. 5/5
Meet Carlos Rico, the 3D artist behind that viral GTA London trailer
In the Christian Pentecostal faith, you are taught to call your wants and desires into existence, and to speak and act as though the things you asked for are already here—and this is exactly what needs to happen in the case of Carlos.mov, real name Carlos Rico, the 3D graphic artist whose homemade GTA London trailer has led hundreds of thousands of people across the UK (and beyond) to call for it to be a real Grand Theft Auto spin-off. Earlier this month, the 29-year-old East Londoner went viral almost immediately after dropping the trailer to his IG, mainly due to how close to reality the city was depicted, while also including things that would never really happen but could have done in a different life or circumstance. The clip features everything from a DJ AG set with Skepta and Jme (which actually happened and looks eerily similar) to a street-fighting D Double E in an underground train station, from a police-chasing money heist to the shooting-down of a racist EDL hideout spot. Rockstar Games, if you’re listening: make. this. happen!
I caught up with Carlos Rico to find out more.
JP: Your GTA London trailer has been seen by millions of people since it dropped earlier this month. Did you expect it to blow up like you did?
Carlos Rico: I definitely didn’t expect the response it received. A lot of my work is more tapped into US music culture, which has a larger audience. So bringing it home, I kinda expected a smaller response than my usual work due to it being a smaller audience. And on top of that, everyone has a different view of what makes London what it is. I’m just gassed that my version of London in the video resonated with as many people as it did.
JP: What inspired you to create this? GTA did release a game called London: 1969 back in 1997, but it’s very different to the London you depict in your version. Your version is the real LDN, by a mile.
Carlos Rico: London, in media—especially video games—never really feels like the London I know. It’s usually the shiny tourist version: Big Ben, Buckingham Palace, all of that. It’s still cool to see London get screentime, but it’s not the city I see every day. You get the odd gem like Top Boy or The Getaway, but The Getaway is three console generations ago now. When Watch Dogs: Legion was announced to be set in London with Stormzy in the game, I was gassed. But when it actually came out, it didn’t do what I thought it would. It just wasn’t London the way I see it. But that’s on me. Watch Dogs is all about futuristic mechanics, so the London in-game has to fit that vibe. I wanted to make something that feels like home, something that mixes the obvious landmarks with the everyday grime you see when you’re actually in the city. I wanted people watching it to feel what I felt playing The Getaway back in the day: I felt gassed seeing London in that game. It just felt so accurate, because it was!
JP: How important do you think it is for people in your line of work to be tapped into what’s going on around them, visually and sonically? You’re evidently a big fan of grime, too, which is dope.
Carlos Rico: I think you need to be tapped into the culture of whatever you’re working on to make something that is actually authentic. Since this video dropped, loads of people have been like, “Do my city! Do GTA Paris!” and as sick as that sounds, it wouldn’t hit the same if I did it, because I’m not plugged into those places the way I am with London. If you stripped out all the background details in my video but left the big landmarks and rappers, it just wouldn’t bang the way it did. To me, the real main character isn’t Jme, Skepta, DJ AG, or even my character—it’s London itself. The 10foot tags, Lime bikes dumped everywhere, bottles of Magnum on the floor, all of those little things make the city feel alive and real.
Grime plays a massive role in that, too. My older brother put me onto grime when I was pretty young, and it stuck. I grew up listening to Jme on my PSP—LimeWire days; sorry Jamie [laughs]—to then going to his cinema tours, and now even owning a share of his music through StradeBase. So, like me, I feel like grime’s also built into the DNA of London.
JP: I’m sure you’ve had a lot of aspiring graphic designers reach out to you for some advice already, but how did you get into 3D graphic design, and what would you say to someone looking to follow in your footsteps?
Carlos Rico: I probably made my first ever 3D animation when I was 12 after stumbling across a YouTube tutorial and getting access to a totally legal and definitely not cracked version of a popular 3D software… Safe to say my first animation was probably pretty shit [laughs]. I never had the patience to learn 3D properly until I got Covid in 2020. I had two weeks of isolation and was playing a game called Skater XL every day. I couldn’t go out and skate in my local park, so me and my mate decided to spend some time learning Blender together over Discord, model our local skateparks and then mod them into the game. All of a sudden, I was allowed to leave the house again but I chose not to—I was too gassed on this software that made me feel like I could literally do anything.
If you’ve even considered learning Blender, you’ve probably heard of Blender Guru’s doughnut tutorial; that’s basically the initiation ritual. I’d say start there, but mix in some of Ian Hubert’s “lazy tutorials” too. They are super-quick, 60-second tutorials that actually give you some cool results and useful skills fast. Sprinkle them in so you get some easy wins along the way, because spending what feels like years modelling one doughnut is a quick way to feel like you’ve achieved nothing, and then you’ll probably give up like the 12-year-old me.
JP: Has anyone from Rockstar Games reached out to you about your GTA London trailer? If not, would you like them to? What would you say to them if they were reading this?
Carlos Rico: They haven’t, no. But I don’t really make these kinds of projects hoping the people I was inspired by will reach out. I make them as a fan first for other fans, and just hope people get a kick out of watching it. That said, if Rockstar did reach out and it wasn’t with a cease and desist [laughs], I’d definitely love to chat with them, probably more as a fan. And if anyone from Rockstar is reading this, I’d just say: good luck with everything right now. Crunch time before release is brutal, and I really hope the devs aren’t getting put through a nightmare crunch cycle.
A lot of people have asked me if working at Rockstar is the goal, and while it isn’t, it got me thinking: if I did have the chance to work on a GTA game, I’d probably want to focus on worldbuilding. I love how the series creates its own in-universe brands and makes them feel real and important to the city—adding Sprunk stickers to bumpers, a few crushed cans of Pißwasser outside a liquor store, that kind of thing. I love making a city feel lived-in and imagining how the characters in that world leave their mark on it.
JP: Where do you hope to take all of this? You’ve got a lot of eyes on you right now, so you’re probably getting offers—but what is Carlos Rico’s big dream?
Carlos Rico: From my early teens, I was a huge Kanye West fan—emphasis on was—and there was something about the “Black Skinhead” video that I just found so cool. It also planted this goal in my head: one day I want to work with Kanye on a music video. And, in late 2023, I actually did—I worked on what was originally meant to be the video for “Carnival”, which later got released for “Fried”. It was bittersweet, though. It wasn’t the video I’d have made if I had any creative input, and of course Kanye’s whole situation is what it is… But hey, I did it for the teenage me. These days, I’m still planning to work on more music videos, just with more creative input and in a more collaborative environment. But my new moonshot is to work with Kendrick Lamar and his pgLang team—the absolute goats of audio-visual storytelling.
Tracks Of The Month
Tracks added for August 2025:
Skepta & Fred again…, “Back 2 Back”
Donae’O f/ Omar & Lemar, “Nights Like This”
Screama & Amber Jade, “Into My Eyes”
JayaHadADream f/ Big Zuu, “Main Characters”
Frisco f/ Jme, Flowdan & Jaya, “Owe Me One”
Fredo, “No Comment”
Asco f/ Young Adz, “High End Fashion”
Afrosurrealist f/ Samson & Floetic, “No Ball Games”
Knucks, “Cut Knuckles”
Tiwa Savage f/ Skepta, “On The Low”
Ravers’ Delight: Tribal Life
Afro-house has blown up massively over the last two years, especially with the likes of South African super-producer and DJ Black Coffee at the forefront. Here in the UK, Afro-house has been a big part of underground clubbing’s fabric for over a decade—with soulful house and UK funky stitched closely to it. DJ Hosteppa’s Tribal Life is one of the UK’s best-kept secrets when it comes to Afro-house and tribal sounds: having started out in 2006 at the Yates pub in Stratford, East London, the club night has grown year on year, with major events being held at the O2 Forum in Kentish Town, O2 Islington, and Ministry Of Sound—the latter of which hosted Tribal Life’s recent Carnival special. Live drums/percussion? Check. Some of the best DJs in the biz? Check. Grown and sexy vibes from start to finish? Check. DJ Hosteppa and crew sure know how to put on a memorable show, a full experience… No wonder why Dubai keeps calling!