He did time. He came back with a MOBO, a new mantra and an album called All Dorks Must Die - Scorcher isn’t here to make nice. He talks the cosplayers ruining UK music culture, The Movement and if Lipsin Ting Part 2 is real, with veteran grime archivist, Hyperfrank.
For those who have followed Scorcher’s career for the past 20-plus years, his return to music feels more like witnessing a veteran finally receive the flowers they’ve always deserved. At one point, the artist born Tayó Jarrett was one of the UK’s most important underground artists and a familiar face across all our TV screens. But his bubbling momentum, and his freedom, were cut short at His Majesty’s pleasure, just as it felt like everything was beginning to fall into place. In an anything-but-straightforward turn of events, no one could have predicted what was going to come next.
“I’m enjoying life right now,” Scorcher says with a smile, before taking a bite of his burger, and so he should be: the MC’s return has been sensational to witness. In the last 18 months alone, he’s secured a MOBO Award for Best Grime Act, built a deep catalogue of standout features and viral freestyles, embracing a more mature outlook on himself, his circle and his music. “I think, for me, music is so aligned with my real life and how I’m really feeling,” he says. “My music reflects how I’m feeling as a person.” If his new project, ADMD(an abbreviation of All Dorks Must Die), is anything to go by, Scorcher’s current mindset signals a compelling shift in where underground music could be heading. Throughout the project, he reflects on his experiences in the music business as he’s climbed back to his rightful position, and on how people on the outskirts have weaponised their roles to interfere with his and others’ artistic process — the kind of actions that can make artists second-guess themselves or lean into what the mainstream, or the analytics, might want.
On ADMD’s opening track, Jordan, Scorcher lays out exactly how he feels about the current state of the music industry — I even got a cheeky shout-out: “I’ve been sick wid it since Hyperfrank!” After thanking him about 40,000 times, I asked why he did that. “When I came back into this space, there was so much I didn’t recognise,” he admits. “There was bare cosplay of what this thing is. There are people in this space who are more about the now.
and the business... Those people cannot steer, shape or coerce how I, and we, look and see things.” He doubles down: “So when I choose to big you up, Hyperfrank, that’s because that’s what this is — whether you understand it or not, whether you manage to search that part up on the internet, go do the research and find out! This is the people’s music. This is our music, and that’s just how I feel."
Before social media metrics became the industry’s favourite currency, Scorcher had already built a solid reputation off the back of local pirate radio and early online sets, stageshow reloads, war-report dubplates and a strong catalogue of mixtapes that captured his versatility — not just across grime and rap tempos, but in the way he told stories like no other. Standout tracks like Sandpit revealed his reflective depth, delving into personal moments at school that helped to shape his character. He also played a vital role in breaking down genre divisions — both within grime and rap — at a time when they were often treated as separate lanes that rarely overlapped. “I think I made it normal,” he says. “You can be one of the mandem doing the exact same things as all these other rappers, but you can make grime too.” As I show him my stack of CDs from his back catalogue, his eyes light up like they’re artefacts he hasn’t seen in decades. “You know, I hate all my old music,” he shares. “This is the first time I think I haven’t felt like that. I don’t think I’ve ever enjoyed myself this much, making music.”In the mid-2000s, Scorcher helped put North London on the music map.
Read the full feature in RWD Magazine Issue
133
Read the full feature in RWD Magazine Issue
133
