Michael Omari (born 26 July 1993), better known by his stage name Stormzy is an English MC who makes both grime and rap music. Stormzy won Best Grime Act at the 2014 MOBO Awards and was named as an artist to look out for in the BBC's influential Sound of 2015 list.^[1][2] Stormzy describes himself as "a child of grime" influenced by the likes of Wiley and Skepta,^[3] but also cites R&B singers such as Frank Ocean and Lauryn Hill as influences on his sound.^[4] Stormzy began MC'ing at the age of 11 and would go to his local youth club to clash older MC's.^[5]

After garnering attention on the UK underground music scene via his Wicked Skengman series of freestyles over classic grime beats,^[2][4] Stormzy released his debut EP Dreamers Disease independently in July 2014.^[6] On 22 October, Stormzy won Best Grime Act at the MOBO awards. Later that month he became the first unsigned rapper to appear on Later with Jools Holland performing the song "Not That Deep" from his Dreamers Disease EP.^[2] In November 2014 Stormzy collaborated with rapper Chip and Shalo on the track "I'm Fine", also appearing in a video for the song. The track is part of Chip's upcoming Believe & Achieve project. ^[7]

On 7 January 2015 Stormzy came number 3 in the BBC Introducing top 5 on Radio 1.^[8] In March 2015 he released the single "Know Me From".

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