UK cloud rap is actually banging in 2025
Cover of Fakemink’s “London Saviour” (2023) © EtnaVeraVela
Like many zillenials, I remember precisely where I was when the first wave of cloud rap hit its peak in 2016. This wave of rap music was brewing since the late 2000s, but really gained mainstream attention in the early 2010s. When we think about the most important creators of this era we think about: pioneer Bones who was doing this kind of music way before the rest with his ground-breaking full-length debut ”Scumbag” (2013), Yung Lean with his viral singles ”Ginseng Strip 2002” & ”Kyoto” (both released in 2013), Lil Peep’s & Lil Tracy’s collaboration ”witchblades” (2017), that mesmerised the whole generation, and Juice WRLD whose phenomena I never fully understood but credit needs to be given here for being the most commercially successful out of the mentioned artists.
I believe that Peep’s status as a cultural icon is best shown in my favourite scene from ”Everybody’s Everything” (which is a posthumous documentary about his life):
Back when all of this stuff was happening, I was a young lad transitioning from high school in Bydgoszcz to uni in London, about the commit the most devastating breakup of my life that coincided with Lil Peep’s untimely passing in 2017. The first wave of cloud rap became my go-to soundtrack during those difficult times, as at its core it’s a music for disillusioned drug-fuelled youth, which is precisely who I was in 2016-2019. I’m mentioning all of this private information as I’ve noticed in the social media space that many people my age have really vivid and really specific memories of where and who they were at this moment in rap history (I encourage sharing these via comments, as I’m sure there’s plenty of interesting stories connected to this music).
The first wave of cloud rap was incredibly varied as a rap subgenre. Bones and his Sesh collective were mostly inspired by southern hip-hop (Three 6 Mafia is the most obvious influence to name here), Yung Lean and Drain Gang were swimming in the Y2K nostalgia, while both Lil Peep and Juice WRLD were mostly driven by emo/pop-punk inspirations. Some time ago, I was listening to Lean or Bones with my friend Mikołaj, and what hit us was ”it was so fresh in the 2010s, so cutting-edge in terms of sound, so DIY in its roots”. The common ground to all rappers creating in this subgenre was: ethereal synths, beats that were reverbed into oblivion, leaning into melody instead of a breakneck speed of rapping, and a grassroots approach to building a following. What I mean by this last statement is that all of the aforementioned creators were releasing their music for free on SoundCloud, and this caused a formation of cult-like following around these artists, which is way too rare among musicians pushed on top 100 lists controlled by big music labels. The wave eventually came to an end as Lil Peep’s and Juice WRLD’s deaths (both caused by accidental overdose) resulted in a flood of copycat rappers trying to quickly capitalise on the gap in the market caused by the passing of these two larger-than-life personas. BTW. I believe that the aftermath of these events can sadly still be heard in the way many Polish rappers sound today, as in my homeland, we’re way too eager to mindlessly copy anything that is or was (usually was) viral in the US.
That’s a hell of a lengthy intro, but to be fair, on this blog, I’m writing about anything that I’m passionate about. Anyway, the year is 2025, and I’m no longer disillusioned or drug-fuelled, but a young adult trying to adapt to the corporate collapse of Western civilisation. At the same time, something is brewing in the UK, something new, something for the next generation of wasted youth to navigate towards their place in the world. The rise of the second wave of cloud rap caught me off guard as I thought it was a one-off event. The marriage of influences this time is different, as instead of emo/pop-punk (which was driven into the ground by musicians like MGK), UK cloud rappers are taking parts of witch house and different types of fringe electronic and rap music (such as sigilkore, glitch core, and hexd). Everything is faster, still melodic, but faster. Running on chopped-up, often recognisable samples that were sped-up and pitched up or down is the most common denominator among this new branch of creators.
With this piece, I would like to present this emerging wave of music with a list of 10 tracks to get you into the UK cloud rap. Some of the artists of this glitchy sample-based revolution are actively knocking on mainstream doors while others are still polishing their sound in the rap underground. For clarification, it’s not a ranking; I use the listicle formula to present these varied sounds in a clear way. Without further ado, let’s dive into the rabbit hole of Y2K-obsessed, disillusioned kids making rap their own way.
#1 Fakemink ”Flavours” (2024)
”Shepard to the game, like that one bitch Cybil” the poster-boy of this emerging sound raps on his self-produced beat that very well could have appeared on the soundtrack of Need For Speed in the early 2000s. Fakemink’s ”Flavours” is a great starting point to get a grip on London’s underground hip-hop scene. It’s catchy, it’s incredibly well-produced for being recorded in a homemade studio, and most importantly, it shows the sharp wit of Fakemink as a lyricist. Despite being the central force of the cloud rap renaissance, he abstains from well-established labels and refuses to be forced into one drawer. He often defines his style as ”luxury rap”; what he means by that is using the everyday formula of rap and putting some ”bling” and flare on it. Think cigarette ash on Alexander McQueen pants, prestige and splendour meeting London’s messy nightlife. He’s been making beats since he was 10 (and it shows) and started rapping when he turned 14. He’s 20 now and was recently co-signed by Frank Ocean and mink’s die-hard role model Drake. When Clairo was asked who she listens to these days, she instantly gave a shout-out to Fakemink, and recently Timothee Chalamet was spotted at barricades during his London show. Give ”Flavours” a listen to understand how the UK’s cloud rap busiest boy (fifty singles released only in 2024, just wow) got to where he is now. You can also hear what he sounded like before the viral TikTok sensation of ”Easter Pink”. Fakemink pioneered the sound we’re speaking about in the same manner as Bones or Yung Lean did with the first wave of cloud rap; he made songs like this before that was even a thing.
#2 Feng ”XY” (2025)
Feng’s album ”What The Feng” lies in the trio of the most important projects of cloud rap renaissance alongside EsDeeKid’s ”Rebel” (2025) and Fakemink’s ”London Saviour” (2023). What makes him stand out is his ability to write simple and immediately relatable lyrics. ”XY” is a great example of that, as it’s a heartbreak song, and like almost everyone experienced that at some point in life. It’s a song about conflicting thoughts about the past partner and the inability to consider this relationship a closed chapter. When it comes to his flow, he’s quite close to the early work of Yung Lean with this laid-back, nonchalant manner of delivering lines. The beat is definitely more glitchy, punchy, and with a higher level of Y2K nostalgia than Lean’s work. This song is also a great case study on how to write a song about the fact that you miss her without sounding like a midwest-emo desperate (that is, in the middle of a mental breakdown). If you have enough time, listen to the whole album to understand his formula for rap, as well as his role as the third in command of this digital revolution.
#3 oopsy ”Dwarf” (2025)
”Girl, you couldn't be my shawty even if you were a dwarf. I’ll take you KFC, but you ain't worth Canary Wharf” oopsy raps on a chopped sample of Willow’s ”transparentsoul”, and that opening line should fully show you what makes him special. That is a very tongue-in-cheek approach to lyrics. In that manner, he is fairly reminiscent of what bbno$ and Yung Gravy are doing in the US. What I mean by that is constant humorous wordplay going on in the lyrics. That being said, the approach towards the musical aspect is fully loyal to the new cloud rap ethos straight from the UK. We can hear that in the beat-making layer as well as in the runtime itself, which oscillates around 1 minute, just like in the majority of Fakemink’s discography. I believe this compact approach to songwriting, sometimes even skipping the chorus altogether, comes from them zoomers knowing damn well the power of social media and algorithms alchemy. oopsy is still relatively underrated despite his first viral single in the form of ”Goomba” (another top-notch track), but I have an assumption that he will eventually get really big. Just like Fakemink he is incredibly busy when it comes to releasing new material. Another similarity between these two artists is their versatility and making it impossible to define their sound into a single subgenre. Give oopsy some love; he deserves it.
#4 EsDeeKid x Rico Ace ”Phantom” (2025)
All right, we had our laughs with oopsy, now let’s move to Liverpool, statistically one of the safer cities to live in England, to listen to some of the most sketchy and menacing music recorded in recent memory. EsDeeKid is a creator with an anonymity level that makes Daft Punk’s little charade look like child’s play, which is incredible for an artist with more than 11 million monthly listeners on Spotify. Lad doesn’t even have his Wikipedia page, and you can’t find his real name on the internet. ”Phantom”, his most successful single from his full-length debut ”Rebel” is a condensed essence of his style. An extremely in-your-face type of delivery, completely uncompromising lyrics inspired by the drug-dealing underworld of Liverpool, which, just like EsDeeKid’s face, is hidden well-deep in the shadows. In terms of the instrumental, it’s fairly similar to Playboi Carti’s most recent rage trap releases, but with a pinch of UK drill and witch house. What I mean by that is overall we’re operating on very low frequencies, eerie synths, and punchy distorted hi-hats. All of this, alongside EsDeeKid’s extremely characteristic Scouse accent, results in a listening experience unlike any other. It’s a storytelling straight from the street that makes even the likes of Kneecap look like a fairly innocent and family-friendly music. Rico Ace adds additional value to this track with his Skepta-like dynamic flow and cheeky lines about nightlife. Many parts of the drill culture have always seemed performative to me, but there’s something so raw, so real, and so dark in the atmosphere created by EsDeeKid and Rico Ace that one can’t simply ignore that.
#5 Fakemink ”Celebrity Deathmatch” (2023)
That’s the track that initially got me interested in the second wave of cloud rap. As a basis for his self-produced beat, Fakemink chose a fairly deep-cut sample that is ”Sacre coeur” by Tina Dico. The catchy and melancholic riff of the original has been significantly sped up, and the inclusion of syncopated percussion in 4/4 results in a track that is both moody and like a battle-cry anthem. Lyrically, Fakemink delivers unapologetic and very tongue-in-cheek verses about his importance to the modern rap game, as one can see in the opening lines:
“I'ma crash into the game like a meteor
Like a Christian man, yeah, I need Dior
I sing well in Celine, like Celine Dion
And I'm clingin' to the money, like a needy one”
Fakemink also pays homage to the song used as a sample by incorporating pitched-up vocals of Tina Dico as a bridge separating his verses. Thanks to this production choice, it sounds both like Alvin and the Chipmunks and an anime opening. Despite flexing with his wardrobe in the lyrics of this track, Fakemink remains in his characteristically bleak and fatalistic outlook on life, as it can be heard in the line:
”She ask me when I win? I reply like never”
Overall, it’s a really creative and fresh track coming from a project that paved the way for anything else on the following list. Fakemink often doubles the number of BPMs of this song while performing it live, which results in a machine-gun level speed of delivery, and an absolute mad reaction from the audience. It’s a spot-on track from top to bottom, one you need to hear at least once (or 168 times as I did this year).
As we don’t have any official visuals for this song, and I feel like that’s the song that deserves some I’m dropping a link to a stunning edit using clips from the movie Human Traffic created by the user dagchic. You’ve done some solid editing work, my man.
#6 hidingthehurt ”Sorry For Being Me” (2025)
The most emotional out of the representatives of the new wave of cloud rap is also one of the most bold and varied in terms of production. hidingthehurt whose real name is Ollie Greenhalgh, on ”Sorry For Being Me” sings us a melodic tale about an apologetic yet apathetic approach towards oneself. It’s an astounding, well-thought-out composition production-wise for an indie artist. ”Sorry For Being Me” is very moody, very catchy with a certain afterglow of the jungle genre in terms of tempo and handling of the sample. Lyrically, it perfectly encapsulates the feeling of waking up at the afterparty on Sunday and holding the weight of yesterday’s questionable choices. Like many of his contemporaries from this second wave of cloud rap, he’s very much a genre-bending creator, not limiting himself to one subgenre but using the influences of hyperpop, indie-rock, emo, and many branches of hip-hop culture. He deserves far more recognition than what he’s currently getting (less than 5k monthly listeners on Spotify), but I believe if hidingthehurt won’t slow down, great things are waiting for him.
#7 EsDeeKid x Fakemink x Rico Ace ”LV Sandals” (2025)
That’s the track that usually makes people go ”daaamn, those British lads go hard”. Heavily distorted vocals, snares, and haunting synths hit the listener from the very first seconds. Fakemink starts his chorus less than a second into the song, which is a fairly unorthodox choice, but that’s what the second wave of cloud rap is all about. The drum section is fairly reminiscent of drill, but that’s the only thing connecting this song to this genre, as the rest of the beat is much closer to witch house and rage. Distinctive flows of EsDeeKid, Fakemink, and Rico Ace blend seamlessly on this song, but we have to remember that it’s hardly the first collaboration for these creators. At the same time, it’s the defining song for the UK underground, one that really put all three parties involved in this song on the map. As a result, it also put the eyes of the world on the scene itself. Many people appreciate the use of the deep breath for rhythmization purposes; it’s fairly similar to what Fontaines D.C. did on ”Starburster”. This choice perfectly completes the claustrophobic and dangerous vibe of the whole composition. At the time of writing this piece, ”LV Sandals” holds over 60 million streams, and that really helped Fakemink and EsDeeKid enter the new chapter of their respective careers and fuelled their momentum in recent months. Overall, ”LV Sandals” is incredibly fresh and a way more aggressive take on rage trap than Playboi Carti’s latest output. The next big rap subculture is going to be British, and after ”LV Sandals” no one can argue with that. It’s the beginning of the superstar era for these artists, and they’ve been grinding for years to be where they are on this song.
#8 PureSnow ”Mirror” (2025)
Another rapper-producer on this list, and the youngest one as well. PureSnow was born in 2008 in London. He’s currently based in Brighton, just like Fakemink; he has been making beats for a while, and you can still find his old ”type beats” on his retired YouTube channel (prod.puresnow). He has been uploading tracks to streaming services only from this year and has attracted more than 400k monthly listeners on Spotify (many of these fans probably dating back to his SoundCloud/YouTube days), which really shows how booming the UK underground scene is at this moment. At its core,” Mirror” is a song about looking for identity, which is obviously really relevant to many people my age and younger. The beat is a majestic homage to alternative electronic acts like Crystal Castles, with its DIY, lo-fi, homemade production, as well as a homage to old cloud rap with its ethereal spacey synths reminiscent of Yung Lean’s music. PureSnow’s flow is much closer to the likes of Bones and Ghostemane. The sample is chopped in a really similar manner to what Feng is doing on his greatest hits. So, as we can see, PureSnow takes from a variety of influences, both old and new, to give us his personal twist on cloud rap. The way the track is mixed gives us a vibe of ascending into greatness, as well as being at life’s crossroads. There is something effortlessly cool about PureSnow’s music and his whole enigmatic rap persona, with a very scarce online footprint and rare interviews. I believe it’s only a matter of time before he reaches Esdeekid’s/Fakemink’s level of popularity, as he has all of the ingredients to separate himself from the rest.
#9 Feng ”XOXO” (2025)
”XOXO” is an intriguing single by Feng. Like many tracks in this subgenre of rap music, it runs on relatively high BPM (130 to be specific), but it’s written in the F#minor key, so that gives it Feng’s signature mellow, moody, and emotional undertone. Those creative choices illustrate another interesting feature of UK cloud rap: the contrasting nature of instrumental and lyrics. Even though the beat on ”XOXO” suggests it’s going to be a party anthem that is dug deeply in glittery Y2K pop nostalgia with its heavily processed synths reminiscing of early work by Ke$ha, it’s actually another bittersweet and bleak portrait of past love. When it comes to the lyrics, it’s almost like a response to the dilemmas of another Feng’s single on this list,”XY”. On ”XOXO,” Feng speaks about the messy and painful end of a relationship, but unlike on ”XY” he tries to definitely close some chapters even though it always ends the same, as we can see in the fragment:
I want to jump out the window, but you're so hard to ignore
I said, "XOXO, I don't want to see you again"
We can't be together, I don't even wanna be friends
I want this story to end, I want you out of my head
But no matter how hard I try, we still end up in bed
Feng’s aesthetic is much more hazy, nostalgic, and even dreamy than that of his contemporaries. There is some online criticism considering Feng’s simplistic lyrics, which, to some, lack the substance of his competition. I would answer that critique by bringing up Yung Lean’s example. He also started with almost overly basic bars (e.g,” bitches come and go *bruh* but you know I’ll stay” on his breakout hit), yet what differentiated him from the pack was the virtuosic ability to capture early 2000s nostalgia. Additionally, as time went on and Lean started to experiment with different genres, he was able to write deeply personal, poetic, and sophisticated lyrics - for example, on his latest LP ”Jonatan” (2025). There are lots of similarities between Feng and Lean. My response to people dissing Feng for ”empty” and ”basic” bars is - give my boy some time, he’s still special in a way that he captures the very specific vibe, and perhaps more complex lyrics will come with time, just like they did in Yung Lean’s case.
#10 Llondon Actress ”country” (2025)
Llondon Actress is an artist that fans of the second wave of cloud rap often sleep on. I personally believe he has the potential to become just as big as Fakemink in the near future. His biggest hit ”country” fits into every cloud rap revival cliche; it’s less than two minutes long, it skips the chorus altogether, and welcomes us with a hazy, thick, and catchy melody, and is obligatory very bleak in its lyrical content. Despite all of those things, there is something one-of-a-kind in Llondon Actress’s output. He seems like the most emotionally tormented out of our disillusioned rap players. Which is incredibly visible in his lines on this song, ” Country” explores themes such as national identity, apathy, self-destructive tendencies, as well as the dissociation in personal relationships. All of these are quite relevant for the whole generation, thus further deepening my belief that he might be the next big thing. His deep, heavily processed, and slightly distorted vocals blend perfectly with the moody beat, capturing the melancholic atmosphere of the UK. The final lines of this song grasp the apathy and distrust in romantic and personal relationships chillingly, as it can be heard in the lines:
“Look me in the eye, don't believe it when you love me
When you say you love me
I think I would die if I had to leave this country
Smokin 'til I die, Every cigarette and monthly
Look me in the eye, yeah, I hate it when you trust me
The apathy is comfy”
Overall, it’s a really well-produced track, one that catches your attention from the very first second and holds it until the final moments.
Final Thoughts
For me and many of my peers, the UK cloud rap renaissance is the single most bold, fresh, and mesmerising moment in recent music history. The light behind the eyes of these young, gifted creators that form this wave shines even brighter than it did with their older colleagues, who orchestrated their own rap revolution almost a decade ago. This list couldn’t contain all of the up-and-coming and established rappers that are a part of the UK's hottest export product, but as a bonus, I include a link to my custom selection of the tracks to get you into UK cloud rap. Don’t sleep on these young lads, as they just throw a glitchy grenade into the music industry, and if you’re a music nerd, you simply can’t deny their impressive influence on the rap music as a whole. This revolution won’t be televised; it already happened on SoundCloud.
