Birmingham Grime - 2024 Wrapped

This year was the best year for Birmingham Grime in a longggg time. Great releases, a clash to kick it all off, Remixes, Pen Game, brand sponsorships, international performances and an awful lotta Brum Grime music was released.

It’s impossible to include everything in this Year wrap up so you can check each individual monthly update via the ‘2024 Monthly Update’ tag HERE.

There’s a renewed energy in Brum again which has come from doing the work and it’s been mostly spearheaded by the new Grime artists coming from the city. From this it seems the previous generation are also starting to get active again. 2025 has a great outlook based off the previous 12 months. The year started strong and finished stronger, so let’s take a look at the highlights.

January

Most people use January to plan their Q1 of the upcoming year. It don’t work like that in Brum, the work just keeps on going. To start the year, Sox, DH, Drizz and Trappy were on Rinse FM with Oblig in what instantly became a Top 10 set of the year, while Mayday & Stretch DCM teamed up for the 2nd instalment of the Slowgress series.

We also saw 2 clashes. Rgg Tech & Grhymz went at it in Self Success’s Pod Event as Drizz GB made it to the semifinals on Pen-Game.

Clashes, Collabs and a strong set kinda laid the foundation of more of the same to follow for the rest of the year.

Feburary

People are warming up now, everyone has finished saying Happy New Year and people are getting into the swing of things. Travs Presents invited Birmingham artists onto their NTS Radio show. The chemistry, energy and adlibs are electric. In real time, you see the synergy start to form and this trend would progress further into the following months.

There was 3 podcast appearances from T.Roadz, Sox & Lady Leshurr. A lot of cool stories and experiences shared.

March

Last month of Q1, gotta make it count! There was 12 song releases this month (not including features!)

Trappy dropped his project ‘New Gen / Old Soul’, C4 dropped 2 songs and started building to his next project alongside drops from Mr Manage, nineteen97 and 2 new instrumentals from Rdon Ranger.

SLMPD brought the city out for a Grime set and the 2nd SLMPD and it seems most of the new artists in the city had pulled up for this. This is something that the city needed more of and SLMPD came in at the right time.

Also, the 0121 Legacy documentary started releasing episodically on LinkUpTV. Very cool to see the story being spread across the world.

April

Life isn’t that bad because it gets dark at like 7pm now. People are enjoying being outside again. You would think so anyway but Brum was warring. There’s already an entire article detailing Birmingham vs Manchester, so you can read the sends chronologically and the eventual clash here.

As a spinoff from this Jaykae came back and went send for send with Kruz Leone. During this time Stretch DCM also became Prizefigther champion of his season. However, April had stuff going on outside of war.

Jaykae, Sox, Dapz & T.Roadz did a Red Bull cypher (this was a top 10 Grime video by view count this year!) whilst DJ Nutz & DH laid the foundations for what would become the Syndicate Show by hosting a 1hr+ set with a mix of new and old Birmingham MCs.

May

You thought war was done? FOOL. Birmingham and Manny went at it LIVE in Birmingham. Who do you think won?

Dapz dropped a tune as did T.Roadz, then T.Roadz went viral on tiktok. Same time Ras Nado gave his thoughts on the state of the city at this point in time.

So you had clashes, releases, sets, podcasts and a new platform which debuted with Trilla returning on a freestyle and a set with Prez T.

This was a big month across the board. Birmingham Sounds Radio was thriving with DJ Free, DJ Barnzy & DJ Big Mikee throwing a set literally once a week for near 2 months at this point. It’s probably more but BSR had a great return to form with these DJs inviting MCs from the city and beyond.

Invasion Alert even returned. Go to YouTube, search for Birmingham Sounds Radio, press ‘Live’ and enjoy DAYS worth of sets of Birmingham grime.

June

War done. Suns out. Back to the music.

So many releases and so many sets. We had Americans on BSR, we had Canadians in Afta Dark, was a lot of work this month.

DH & Stretch DCM also dropped Clinch with Dapz dropping a 2nd single in 2 months.

T.Roadz dropped a part 2 to his Behind Barz on LinkupTV.

The world also started paying attention to what Drizz was doing on Pen Game. It would only grow from here and Drizz reallllly turned it up after the quarters.

July

Collaboration time. Some projects dropped, C4’s ‘Between the Lines’, producer Moshino Royale dropped ‘Network Riddim’. Then you had C4 & Hitman, Mr Manage & SG, Rgg Tech & Varntae and so many collaborative songs dropping this month that Preditah celebrated with a Circles Allstar version with 15 MCs!

T.Roadz went viral again and Drizz was on LinkupTV for some work with Pen Game, the summer was looking promising.

August

How can I take investment advice from a man with artwork made on Canva?

Sigil Radio was on its 3rd month of being a new radio station in Brum and Mayday’s Canva bar went viral. 11M+ views in 2 weeks, so he turned it into a song and dropped it.

August seemed to be the month of the cypher as there was a lot of big cyphers dropped through the month. Also a strong month for sets including a reunion of sorts post-war between Manchester and Birmingham MCs.

September

Big collaborative month with Mayday’s 04 JBL Remix featuring 9 Brum MCs, Deadly dropping 2 tunes with 2 features each and there were 20+ freestyles and sets throughout the month.

Mayday made his South Korea debut and at the same time Birmingham linked up with Worcester and put together a huge cypher.

October

It was the 1 year anniversary of this newsletter! Thanks for reading and subscribing, it’s appreciated.

A few returns from both Lady Leshurr & Mayhem NODB this month with them both dropping singles.

This month also saw the debut of Trappy in PenGame as he partnered with Drizz for the 2on2 tournament. Safe to set the level was set from the get go from the pair. Same time, Stretch was on a podcast discussing his career so far.

November

AWFUL LOTTA BIRMINGHAM!!!

Mayday dropped the ALB project featuring majority of the new Grime artists in the city.

Lil Choppa returned, Drizz dropped S4 Wrapup of Pen Game and we saw freestyles from artists such as T.Roadz, to Devilman and even a NODB set.

Round 2 of the semifinals in Pen Game became something historic, alongside HOODRICH and a M1llionz hosted cypher and a DJ clash hosted by Jaykae & DJ Free.

A good month for all sides of Birmingham Grime.

December

12/12. Birmingham finished as it started, a lot of work.

Singles from T.Roadz, DH, Lady Leshurr, Rgg Tech & more.

Drizz GB & Trappy won the 2on2 tournament and Drizz was on a podcast speaking about everything PenGame.

A great 12 months. An awful lotta work going on it. For everything mentioned that isn’t linked you can revisit the monthly versions to catchup on them all.

Monthly Versions

NOW ITS TIME FOR THE STATS

Yeah, I fully sat here and counted everything below. So if you don’t subscribe for the time I put in then idk, thanks in advance <3

In 2024, Birmingham had:

• 192 Songs

• 12 Projects

• 11 Clashes

• 16 Freestyles

• 85 Sets

And of course a load of these brand new releases were added to the Birmingham Grime (Grime Only) playlist, so be sure to check it out.

Happy New Year.

0121.