By Jed Dixon, Epitome Curator
UK underground rap has exploded in the past year, firmly establishing itself to a global mainstream audience. Artists like Fakemink and Feng have seen massive growth in America especially, with American listeners making up 41 per cent of their respective overall audience according to Chartmetric data. This new generation of UK rap has finally managed what few others ever have - US fame.
The genre has seen a massive boom recently, as UK underground rap saw 297 per cent growth in Soundcloud listens in 2025, with particular popularity amongst a Gen Z audience. The scene stretches from Fakemink's eccentric cloud rap to YT's nu-jerk, pulling in elements of grime, drill and R&B alongside Soundcloud influenced notes of electronic, jerk, and more. The new online landscape of music has made this genre-bleeding easier than ever, with production styles and music scenes no longer being geographically tethered.
This lies in stark contrast to the UK rap scene of old. Grime, for example, spread in popularity through pirate radio and early YouTube, with artists slowly building up their reputation and earning fans in deeply local scenes. Breakthrough to the mainstream and catching label attention was rare, and international crossover was rarer still, usually requiring personal friendships with US artists.
Compare this to the borderless influence of modern music platforms, where any music can instantly be accessed from anywhere. Trends and advertising campaigns, especially on TikTok, can allow artists to become global superstars overnight. You might be inclined to think then that perhaps TikTok is all there is to it, but this doesn't tell the full story.
Of course, having a trending song on TikTok can be a massive boost to your career, as Fakemink and EsDeeKid only know too well. Chartmetric data reveals that within a month EsDeeKid's monthly listeners on Spotify more than doubled, largely thanks to the number of TikToks using one of his songs rising from over 1000 to more than 80,000 in the same window. Fakemink saw a similar rise in Spotify listeners (again, more than doubling) in March 2025 as the number of TikTok sound posts under his name rose from 34 to 2636.
Yet in both cases, this boom was preceded by a quieter surge - both artists had already more than doubled their Spotify listeners in the month preceding their songs exploding on TikTok. This is telling of a driving force behind their growth beyond just this one app, with TikTok amplifying momentum rather than creating success from nowhere.
So there has to be more going on than just the infrastructure of music distribution changing, suggesting a more fundamental difference between this new generation of UK rappers and their predecessors. There has been no shortage of speculation for why older generations of UK rappers could never break through, but the most compelling thread to explore is the cultural differences between the old and new.
Successful UK rappers of previous generations have an undeniable Britishness to their music - not just through cultural references and slang, but the story they and their music told. Dave's PSYCHODRAMA told the story of a Black British man growing up in South London, inseparable from a British context. Stormzy headlined Glastonbury in a Union Jack stab vest, and used his performance at the Brit Awards to make a statement on Grenfell, clearly focussed on his domestic influence.
That Britishness is still present in UK underground rap. You hear it in lyrics like ‘Essex boy, only thing I'm missing is the spray tan’ (Fakemink), or through the overtly British iconography of ‘Country’ by Llondon Actress. But culturally, something else is being shared beyond just Britain.
For this new generation of rappers, who grew up at least partly online, digital life and online culture is a part of who they are. Digital consumption is now an undeniable part of everyday life for all young people, a cultural experience which provides a bridge for Britain to connect to the international market.
Since more than 86 per cent of UK underground listeners are Gen Z, clearly there is something in these artists that appeals specifically to a digitally native audience. There exists a shared language pieced together from reels and twitter feeds, and an identity shaped by years of online experience - this is why the sound can appeal to a 19 year old in London as much as it can to a 19 year old in LA, Warsaw or Berlin.
The manifestation of this digitally influenced style is particularly obvious in the often absurd, Instagram filtered aesthetics of artists like Fakemink. EP and single releases are accompanied by an assortment of seemingly random images mashed together to form cover art in a way that simply wouldn't make sense to anyone offline. The effect is clearly visible in lyrics too, overtly in lines like ‘Should I press send or block and clear my search?’ (Feng), but even more so in the sheer range of influences these artists absorb simultaneously. American drug culture, exclusive high fashion, and indie sleaze sit within the same palette, since they are now visible through a single platform, meaning the distance between reference points has been flattened.
Ish Kumar
While musical identities were once bound to a physical community and geographical location, this barrier to entry has been completely removed by digital spaces that can be accessed globally. This is the cultural landscape the modern UK underground was born out of. On reflection then, it's no wonder that much of a digital generation loves a digital sound.
The UK underground finding international success is only part of a wider pattern. As culture shifts from physical to digital, from long-form to short-form, and from local to global, expect to see far more international cross-pollination in the music scene. This case study provides vital insight into a new type of author and audience, and acts as a clear projection for what the future of music holds.
Featured image: Epigram / Jed DixonDo you follow the UK underground scene?
