AJ Tracey

Buy AJ Tracey's Flu Game here

Few people are born into their profession quite so perfectly as West London rapper AJ Tracey. If you were going to create a recipe for a grime rapper, one part Caribbean rapper and one part drum’n’bass  DJ would seem like a solid place to start. Born in Brixton in the mid ’90s, Tracey (real name Che Wolton Grant) inherited his love of music from a father who’d been a rapper in Trinidad and Tobago and a mother who was a jungle DJ in Wales.

Inspired by the birth of grime, Tracey began writing rhymes at a very young age. When the second wave came around, he was in his early 20s and primed to take advantage. His rise began on pirate radio, under the aliases Looney and Loonz, and carried momentum all the way to BBC Radio One.

Tracey capitalised on his radio successes with a string of Eps, starting with 2015’s The Front. Alex Moran and AJ’s Stocking Filler followed that December, ahead of Lil Tracey a year later. By 2016, even The Guardian was tipping Tracey as one to watch. His collaboration with Dave on the single Thiago Silva made sure his name was being mentioned even more prominently, while he used his increasing popularity to endorse Jeremy Corbyn and publicly criticise the government’s handling of the Grenfell fire.

AJ Tracey’s self-titled debut album arrived in early 2019 and featured his highest-charting UK single Ladbroke Grove (No.3 in 2019). In April 2020, Tracey took part in the BBC charity single, recorded as a response to the COVID-19 pandemic. The cover of Foo Fighters’ Times Like These also featured Dave Grohl, Coldplay, Celeste, Anne-Marie, Jess Glynne, Dua Lipa and Biffy Clyro (amongst others) and reached No.1 on the UK single charts.

In April 2021, Tracey released his second album, Flu Game, featuring the top ten singles Dinner Guest and West Ten (featuring Mabel). To support the album, AJ Tracey announced UK tour dates for November 2021.