Stormzy

No influence in this record is more literally audible: the chorus of Stormzy's "Return of the Rucksack" lifts a verse near-verbatim from Dizzee Rascal's 2003 "Seems 2 Be." Dizzee noticed. "The song he sent me was Return Of The Rucksack," he told The Sun in 2017, explaining why he turned down a studio session together. "The chorus, that's actually a verse from one of my songs... He quotes so many of my lyrics but the new generation won't know that." A quotation, not a co-write — and Dizzee let the record stand uncorrected.

listen: upstream & heresource: Noise11 — "Dizzee Rascal Turned Down Stormzy Collaboration" (confirms the Return of the Rucksack interpolation) ↗share

2003

Seems 2 BeDizzee Rascal

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2017

Return of the RucksackStormzy

listen forLine up Dizzee's "Roll deep on these, put these MCs on deep freeze" against Stormzy's "But I roll deep on these, show these likkle MCs about greaze" and the borrowing is unmistakable down to the cadence, not just the words — Stormzy keeps Dizzee's clipped, percussive stress pattern intact while swapping in his own slang. It's a teenager's tribute hiding in plain sight on a UK number-one album, a Mercury Prize verse from 2003 still setting the meter fourteen years later.

Ask Stormzy in 2014 to name his five biggest influences and the first word out of his mouth, after a pause, is Skepta. "I just think that as UK artists he has set the blueprint to follow," he told RWD Magazine. "He reached the pinnacle." It's a debt owed less to any single song than to the example Skepta set of a British MC building his own lane rather than chasing an American one — the same self-sufficiency that let a South Norwood freestyler turn underground YouTube buzz into a chart run without ever softening his accent for it.

listen: upstream & heresource: RWD Magazine — "Exclusive Interview ↗share

2015

ShutdownSkepta

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2015

Shut UpStormzy

listen forNeither artist points to a specific song as the model, so listen for the shared move instead: both "Shutdown" and "Shut Up" strip a grime beat down to a bare, clattering pulse and hand the hook to the crowd rather than a melody, built to be shouted back in a festival tent more than sung along to on headphones. It's the same bet Skepta made first — that bluntness, not polish, was the sound that could carry a UK MC to the top of the charts.

Stormzy has said the psychological trap of recording gospel music is judging your own voice — so for "Blinded by Your Grace, Pt. 1" he named the record that talked him out of it. "'Blinded' reminds me of that Kanye West song, 'Only One,' which is one of my favorites," he told The FADER. "The world loves that song, and we're not judging Kanye for not sounding like fucking Usher. You can hear the sincerity of it, and it works." He recorded his own vocal live on a studio sofa, unpolished, on purpose.

listen: upstream & heresource: The FADER — "Stormzy Tells The Story Behind Every Song On His Debut Album" (names Kanye West's Only One as the model for Blinded by Your Grace, Pt. 1) ↗share

2014

Only OneKanye West

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2017

Blinded by Your Grace, Pt. 1Stormzy

listen for"Only One" is built on a single plain piano figure and Kanye's talk-singing, unashamed of its limits; "Blinded by Your Grace, Pt. 1" borrows that same bare arrangement and untrained candor, letting Stormzy's voice crack rather than smoothing it into a studio-polished gospel run. Neither song is chasing vocal virtuosity — both are betting that an audibly imperfect voice, singing something meant, lands harder than a technically flawless one.