Stormzy's
big year

Stormzy had revealed what he’d planned to say only to his producer, his sound engineer, and a couple of close friends.

During rehearsals, as Brit executives and producers watched, he’d used a dummy lyric to throw them off the scent.

Downing Street shot back the next day, defending the government’s actions and saying millions had been committed to the community.

The authorities’ slow response to the fire at Grenfell Tower in June 2017, which killed 72 people, and the conditions that led to the blaze, had already been criticised by a number of rappers.

The rapper Lowkey said the burned-out building made a sort of violence, that is usually invisible, suddenly visible.

Musician and author Akala was more blunt. “The people who died and lost their homes, this happened to them because they are poor,” he told Channel 4 News.

Stormzy’s Brits rap came after he was challenged by a guy from Ladbroke Grove called Riz, he later revealed at the launch of his book, Rise Up: The #Merky Story So Far.

Stormzy said he visited Grenfell with Riz and met some of the affected families.

“It proper dawned on me at that point. I was like, surely man can do something with whatever platform man’s got to ensure something happens?”

When Stormzy rapped about Grenfell, he seemed to get a response.

In the months that followed, he was mentioned in Parliament. Some felt he had helped influence Theresa May’s decision to appoint a more diverse panel for the Grenfell Inquiry - after encouraging his supporters to sign a petition.

Stormzy himself didn’t want to exaggerate his impact.

“All we've done is... say words. In terms of actually making change and making something happen, I wasn't quite convinced,” he told Radio 1 Newsbeat.

“Until the people in that situation fully feel like they've received their justice, then I'm not too sure about all of that.”

But the Brits moment was still one of the most pivotal in Stormzy’s career. Large sections of the country, who had previously either paid no notice or pigeonholed him, sat up and watched.

Stormzy’s music resonates for poor working-class people, says Spotify’s Head of Editorial Austin Daboh.

“Whether you’re a kid in a council estate in Toxteth in Liverpool, an Asian kid in an estate in Bradford, or a young black south London teenager, you can all relate.”

Now Stormzy was calling out the prime minister at an awards show.

When tourists get on the London Underground, they could be forgiven for thinking there’s not much going on in the south of the city. Some Tube maps don’t even show Brixton.

For Stormzy though, growing up as Michael Omari, there was nothing north of Brixton.

“You see where the 109 starts and it finishes? That was the world. That was the whole world,” Stormzy said at the launch of his book Rise Up.

The 109 bus begins not far from East Croydon train station, and heads through Thornton Heath, Streatham, and into Brixton.

Get on and you’ll go past a Harris Academy school like the one Stormzy went to, one of several dotted around south London.

Streatham Common is a rare bit of greenery on the route, before it terminates a couple of minutes walk from Brixton Academy - just past the famed Electric Avenue.

“I didn’t know nothing outside of that,” Stormzy said.

Stormzy had uploaded a freestyle to YouTube titled Wickedskengman [part 1] in 2013 - before he’d left his job.

It showcased Stormzy’s trademark cheekiness and charm - there are 15 seconds where he starts to talk, ends up laughing, and starts again, before actually getting into the rap.

Wickedskengman [part 2] dropped three months later, in early 2014.

Twin saw the videos before he met Stormzy.

“This guy was using everything that everyone loved about grime: the DIY ethic, in terms of making his own video, the funny lyrics - but the hardness to it - the street edge. It being captivating, it being energetic.”

Then there was Know Me From - which was shot in one take walking through Croydon, with a cameo from mum Abigail - and Shut Up.

That video - already with more than 83 million YouTube views - was filmed at South Norwood Lake, with Stormzy in a signature Adidas tracksuit. This one was bright red.

Rise Up charts the journey of Stormzy and his team, and was edited and co-written by Jude Yawson.

Stormzy got in touch with Jude, who’s also from south London, in 2014 after reading something he’d written about the rapper online.

Stormzy mentioned that they should work on something together in the future.

“Then in January he just appeared out of the blue, in my DMs again, and was like ‘Yo, I’m gonna put you in contact with Akua - my brand manager - and we’ll get things underway,” Jude told Newsbeat.

Stormzy wanted to help young writers.

“I thought to myself, ‘I’m in a position where I could create something that helps them’ - and that’s what I’m doing," he said.

Next up for #Merky Books is Taking Up Space, written by Chelsea Kwakye and Ore Ogunbiyi.

The Cambridge alumni have written a book “for any black girl going to university”, Chelsea told Newsbeat.

At uni, Chelsea says she realised a distinction between being a student and being a black student.

“You’re there, you’re fighting for your rights, there are things that you have to face on a day-to-day basis - microaggressions, sometimes blatant racism.

“And I know that happens every day in society but the university environment, it compounds it, it makes everything really heightened.”

The book combines conversations with former and current students. Chelsea says she hopes it starts a conversation about what can be done to include black students as well as just increasing numbers.