Blade Brown

UK rapper Blade Brown was born Jonathan Wrate in Streatham, London on February 12, 1985, and since 2003 has gradually built a reputation as a respected performer on the British hip-hop scene. In 2007, he released a collaboration mixtape with fellow London rapper Giggs under the title Hollow Meetz Blade but, despite receiving widespread acclaim from audiences and critics, Blade failed to capitalize on the opportunity and his music career went into a brief hiatus. He emerged two years later with his Best of Blade but it wasn't until his ninth mixtape titled Bags and Boxes 3 that Blade enjoyed his first UK chart entry when it went to Number 42. It was to be a further five years before the artist would release another collection of songs but when Bags and Boxes 4 finally came out, Blade finally enjoyed the success many had been predicting and the album peaked at Number 12 in the charts.

Blade's sporadic releases have made him something of an enigma in the UK hip-hop scene but the chart performance of Bags and Boxes 4 has confirmed there is a significant latent demand for his material amongst UK rap enthusiasts. In 2022, Blade Brown dropped the collaborative mixtape Joints with fellow rapper K-Trap, reaching Number 18 on the UK Albums Chart and Number 2 on the UK Hip Hop and R&B Singles Chart.