Strandz

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Territory: Worldwide except North & South America

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Strandz

about the artist

Strandz is the type to stand unapologetically in his own lane. The South London artist raps, produces and crafts a uniquely open-hearted brand of hip-hop. To even categorise his music as one genre misses the point, though. Really, Strandz riffs on sonic textures rooted in his multinational and multicultural childhood, to create a dynamic sound that's all his own. "My parents kept all of this different musical knowledge embedded in our lives — even though, for me, it felt subconscious at the time," he says, reflecting on growing up with his German mother, Nigerian father and younger brother. "That's now…

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Strandz is the type to stand unapologetically in his own lane. The South London artist raps, produces and crafts a uniquely open-hearted brand of hip-hop. To even categorise his music as one genre misses the point, though. Really, Strandz riffs on sonic textures rooted in his multinational and multicultural childhood, to create a dynamic sound that's all his own. "My parents kept all of this different musical knowledge embedded in our lives — even though, for me, it felt subconscious at the time," he says, reflecting on growing up with his German mother, Nigerian father and younger brother. "That's now reflected in the things I'm interested in, and in the ways I like to fuse genres and combine sounds."

As a result, there's no one else like him on the scene. Some artists might have chosen a more conventional route to follow after the huge year Strandz enjoyed in 2023. Among the accomplishments: soaring into the top 10 of the singles chart, sitting in the pocket of the beat on the Smokey Robinson-sampling 'Us Against the World' — an assist from UK drill heavyweight Digga D on a remix fuelled the track's upward trajectory even more.

Strandz followed 'Us Against the World' with 'J'Adore,' a laidback ode to cherishing your ride-or-die. With both, he built an incredible, organic call-and-response loop of inspiration with his fans on social media. By the end of the year, he'd bagged a MOBO Best Newcomer Award nomination, hit more than 100m streams and been pegged as one to watch by Vevo, No Signal, MTV Push and Amazon Music. And as he prepares to follow those major successes of his breakout year, he's only aiming higher.

"At the beginning of 2023, I decided I wanted to test myself and push myself a bit more," he says, of how he's continued to evolve from performer to all-round creative: writing, producing, engineering and executive-producing his work. "I don't hold back when I'm making all the stuff I've been working on. That feels like a good thing. I can really experiment and not be ashamed of anything." What that means for now is that there's more music on the way, in the form of what he's calling a 'care package' for fans.

"I'd say it's a care package because it's a creative refresh," he explains. "I want to put stuff out there that people can listen to and be inspired by, because a lot of the tracks on there are like their own little worlds." You'll already know some of those worlds. 'Feeling Alive,' from November 2023 and featuring experimental rapper Lancey Foux, pairs synths with a crisp beat and Strandz's unmistakable, velvet-smooth flow. It sounds just as at home on the dancefloor as booming out of a car's speakers. Meanwhile, December 2023's 'An Idea Was Born' is an immersive, reflective look back at Strandz's come-up underpinned by mellow piano and driving bass. Elsewhere on the project, he taps into highlife-inspired electric guitars and live drums to elevate his distinctive sound.

These boundary-breaking sonics have been years in the making. Strandz arrived in London as a child after being born in Hamburg, living in Lagos and south-eastern Nigeria's Igboland village Nnobi along the way. Everywhere they lived, music was a constant. "When I was young, I just thought that everyone's parents had and played bare music at home," he laughs, remembering his family's massive collection of burned CDs. "That was just a part of life for me. Both my parents had a very strong taste in music. They loved Amy Winehouse, Feist, Fela Kuti, Bob Marley and more. That helped put a lot of ideas in my head."

His parents also modelled a fierce work ethic for their eldest son as they built a new life from scratch in England. Strandz started working in a local studio, engineering tracks for other artists, when he was just 14. He rapped too, at his youth club, and quickly started to take it seriously. "I had the hustler mindset. I thought, 'fuck it — if I'm gonna do it, I'll do it all the way.' From when I started, I was already telling myself I was gonna be a star." As an adolescent in south London, Strandz was never too far from the streets. But music would give him another path. "Because I had so much life experience, from travelling, I always knew that there was more to life," he says. After learning piano in just a few months to audition for the BRIT School, he got in. His knack for blending genres and striking out in his own direction really began then.

"Before BRIT School, I was pretty much making whatever the rest of the scene was making," he remembers — at the time, that meant UK drill. "It felt like that was what you had to do to be successful. I was doing the AutoTune, some of the drill. Once I'd decided to leave the street life and focus on music and being legit it didn't make sense to do drill." He graduated from rapping over beats he'd find on YouTube to collaborating with sibling production duo Blueboy & Dash.

Pulling from the music history he was learning at school and those relentless hours in the studio both engineering and writing, Strandz landed on the warm, infectious and one-of-a-kind production that's since made his name. You can hear the influences of G-Unit rappers in how his cadence rides a beat, and hints of early 2000s Jay-Z in other parts of Strandz's flow.

He's always loved hip-hop, though his enjoyment of it felt like something private when he was a young teen. "It's funny it was even private, but when I was in my teens that was that phase when actual rap wasn't 'cool,'" he recalls. That didn't hold him back. Now, Strandz brings together his formative love of hip-hop with an ever-growing stack of inspiration. He isn't scared to play with unexpected instrumentation, samples or executive-produce musicians on the upcoming project.

Co-signs from Skepta, Digga, Tion Wayne and planned live dates cement Strandz's wide-reaching talent. He keeps developing his creative process, whether in the way he writes or his ambitions to produce more for other artists. He's always growing, trying something new, progressing. For Strandz, there are no limits — there never have been. "This year, there's gonna be a lot more music for me. It's going to be the start of a lot of paths that I take. Privately, I started to go down these paths on a more personal level. Now, I'm ready to introduce those ideas publicly — from doing amapiano to highlife — and letting them grow. That's my plan." He's doing it all his own way.

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