There’s a special shelf in grime and rap reserved for genre pioneers; the people credited with bringing a new blend of music to the masses.
Dizzee Rascal and Wiley are known as the guys who got grime going in Britain.
Skepta and JME’s loud and proud lyrics are what helped push the genre outside of the M25.
And Aitch and Bugzy Malone have received important recognition for giving rap a Mancunian tongue.
These seminal artists started the shows. But they didn’t set the stages. Peer closer at the rich history of British hip-hop; and you’ll find figures in the prologue.
Before Dizzee and Wiley gave grime its own identity, Rodney P and Roots Manuva were clearing the path for the first wave of authentic national rap with their unmistakably English lyricism.
Before the BBK brothers were waxing lyrical, Akala was speaking out about the streets.
And before Bugzy and Aitch put Manchester on the map, a young lad from Moss Side called RIO was helping to lay the local groundwork.
Now, this member of Manchester’s old guard is making a triumphant return to the scene.
“The king is back,” RIO tells The Manc, revelling in a resurgence he’s been threatening to make for half a decade.
“These are my fans’ words, not mine.
“I love what the likes of Bugzy and Aitch are doing right now. They’re geniuses. They’ve taken things up a level and I think that’s fantastic.
“But there’s a vacant throne beside them that’s mine. I’m coming back for it.”
The hiatus has been a long one, but the name RIO will ring a bell among music fans who were there when the Manchester grime scene was first taking flight.
At the turn of the ‘10s, RIO was being touted as “one to watch” by the media, and the hype in his hometown had reached fever pitch.
He’d refined his rhyming in neighbourhood road huddles as a teenager and relentlessly peddled CDs on Market Street; making a few quid on rap shows he helped to set up across the city (Wiley starred on one).
But when he hustled his mixtape into HMV – where it sat alongside iconic genre records like Boy In Da Corner – things snowballed.
Suddenly, RIO was getting shout-outs from record spinners right at the top, including MistaJam, DJ Target, Tim Westwood and DJ Q. He was out on the road with legends like Nas, Rick Ross, T-Pain and Julez Santana. Local Premier League stars Rio Ferdinand and Mario Balotelli were even stepping in to star in his videos.
Manchester had seemingly spawned the next big star. But the journey struck a bump.
Trouble began brewing when RIO’s label, IMA, began gawking enviously at the pop rappers selling six figure albums in the charts. They wanted their signing to do the same.
“They were desperate to turn me into Tinie Tempah or Tinchy Stryder,” RIO sighs.
“Y’know, they were trying to put the sunglasses on me and make my music like those guys.
“I watch some of my videos from back then and just think – ‘that’s not real’. They’re pop records. Why did I do that?
“I got to do some big things with the label – they got me on Soccer AM and took me to the MOBO Awards. But I wasn’t connecting with my fans.
“I didn’t know any better. I was a kid.”
Things eventually reached a point when RIO just couldn’t do it anymore. He decided to duck out.
Within four years, he’d gone from rising star to sinking ship; cast adrift from the rap scene where the heavy weight of his mental health threatened to drown his once-promising career.
He briefly came up for air on a few occasions (releasing sporadic singles online). But it wasn’t until recently he felt in the right place to reclaim the reputation he left back on dry land.
“I’ve always known I was good enough,” RIO explains confidently.
“Ability wasn’t what forced me to keep dropping out. It was my mental health.”
Whenever it looked like RIO might be about to re-emerge, the underground scene would react with excitement. But the rapper would invariably abandon his comeback due to a deep-seated anxiety.
On one occasion, he spent days preparing a return show at Dry Bar, and when the time came to publish the tickets, he hovered his cursor over the “sell” button for several minutes straight, terrified to confirm the event in case nobody showed up.
The gig sold out.
Demand was so great, in fact, RIO had to hastily arrange on a second show to fit in all the fans.
Still, despite the fierce loyalty of his core audience, RIO continued to find reasons to avoid a full-time return.
“Fear was dominating me,” he says.
“I’d just make excuses – I’m busy with work, I’ve got too much on, whatever. Anytime I teased a return DJs would get excited, but then I’d disappear again and they started to ignore me.
“I don’t blame them. It was like The Boy Who Cried Wolf.”
“For a long time, whenever there was an opportunity, I was like a deer in the headlights, afraid of failure. I actually go out looking for failure now; it’s just another challenge that helps you to grow.
“I thought: How can I teach my sons about courage and adversity if I don’t take this shot?
“I could see the Manchester scene was moving and I wanted to get involved.
“Now I’m here to stay. I’m on a mission to get back to my rightful spot.”
Other artists in RIO’s position would recognise the past few years as tumultuous. But he doesn’t see it that way. RIO believes the choppy waters have stirred new creativity within him; resulting in the rapper producing the “best music he’s ever made”.
“Artists often reveal the most when they’re at their most vulnerable,” he says.
“This comeback has nothing to do with money. I’ve got my own business where I earn. This is about change. It’s for my fans. Now, they finally get to hear my story.”
Given how his territory is home to some of the top artists in rap right now, RIO is often asked about his fellow residents lighting up Manchester.
“The game’s as good as it’s ever been up here,” he says.
“But some people need to learn what the real history is.
“A lot of younger rap fans will think the current guys started it all in Manchester.
“But with ‘The Lost Archives’, we’ve been documenting the history and started dropping a track from my back catalogue every Thursday at 7pm, all available for free download, so that will settle that. It will end the conversation of who came first.
“These guys in the game now… they know who I am.
“My city’s got the best artists in the country as far as I’m concerned. There’s been a whole host of talent come through in the last four years, and rightfully I couldn’t make a return without paying homage.”
“I’m not here to tear things down. I’m here to get involved again.”
RIO describes his style as being in the mould of artists like Dave or Kano; with a renewed focus on adding strings, choirs and brass to his compositions.
He’s been recording his new EP – The Good, The Bad and The Ugly – during socially distanced sessions at a local studio with fellow Manc producer JSD, and he says the music is very different to what his fans have heard before.
“My latest music is authentic, original and relatable,” RIO tells us.
“Plus, it tells my story. Most of my fans will have never actually heard my story before.
“People know I’m good with lyrics and flows, but I’ve never had the courage to tell them exactly who I am.
“I don’t talk about having a knife in my bag, or cooking and selling drugs. I don’t have videos featuring loads of girls and jewellery.
“I talk about what’s truly happening in my life. I’m a dad; I’ve matured as a person and as an artist.”
RIO has already expressed his excitement at the buzz his second comeback is generating with his old clique of fans. Now, he’s attacking the scene on nostalgic and new fronts.
By releasing The Lost Archives singles produced in the noughties, he’s prompting fans to go looking deeper into the genre’s roots; whilst his upcoming music is aimed at taking things to a higher echelon.
He’s already made a start on another EP, with high hopes for all of his new material.
“People will always naturally gravitate to something if it’s got quality,” RIO says defiantly.
“I’ve been doing this since ‘05 – so I know good music and I know bad music.
“This latest stuff I’ve been doing… I’m confident it will change the game in Manchester.”
Listen and watch RIO’s journey through the ‘The Lost Archives’here.
Keep up to date with RIO by following him on his socials.: @rioowyamean
Audio
Revenue from Manchester’s ‘big gigs’ to go towards supporting local grassroots music venues
Emily Sergeant
Manchester City Council is set to earmark almost £250,000 to support grassroots music venues in the city.
Following on from the success of the city’s huge summer of music, which in recent weeks has seen hundreds of thousands of fans converge in the city to see massive names like Olivia Rodrigo, Billie Eilish, Charlie XCX, Elbow, and Robbie Williams, as well as other talents like Fontaines D.C. and Sam Fender still yet to come.
Oh yeah, and there was also that small matter of Oasis reuniting for five nostalgia-drenched gigs in Manchester’s Heaton Park earlier last month.
Over the course of the summer, it has been estimated that Manchester will have attracted a whopping 1.3 million music tourists, which is being described as a ‘tremendous’ boost for the city’s economy as a whole, especially the hospitality industry.
Revenue made from Manchester’s ‘big gigs’ this summer is to go towards supporting local grassroots music venues / Credit: Eldhose Kuriyan | Joshua Hanson (via Unsplash)
These huge events are also generating income for the Council too, either by being hosted in the city’s largest parks with commercial arrangements for their use, or through the business rates paid by major venues – and it’s this income that has been earmarked to go towards supporting grassroots music venues throughout the city.
As well as reinvesting part of this revenue into parks and greenspaces, the Council is planning to set aside £245,000 to be made available in financial support for Manchester’s grassroots venues.
While exact details are in the process of being finalised, the intention is that the scheme will be administered by the Music Venue Trust to ensure that the money gets to where it is needed as ‘quickly and effectively’ as possible.
It’s estimated that Manchester will have welcomed 1.3 million music tourists before summer’s out / Credit: Nathan Mullet (via Unsplash)
“Manchester is a big noise in the music world,” commented Councillor Bev Craig, who is the Leader of Manchester City Council, “and this summer, all eyes have been on the city as we’ve hosted some huge concerts and seen unprecedented success in our large venues.
“But while the biggest gigs might dominate the headlines, we know they are only possible because they are part of a wider ecosystem, with grassroots venues providing the launchpads for acts to develop and grow.
It's been a BIG summer of music in Manchester.
We've got pioneering plans to use money raised by some of the biggest gigs to support our grassroots venues – a vital ingredient of the city's amazing music scene: https://t.co/8ekQN7AmGBpic.twitter.com/MpVWpeHqbk
— Manchester City Council (@ManCityCouncil) July 31, 2025
“We know that across the country, grassroots venues are struggling. That’s why we want to ensure that our grassroots venues can share some of the benefit from the success of those big events.
“We’re blessed in Manchester with an array of great smaller venues.
“They are there to be enjoyed and I’d encouraged anyone who values them to get out and support them.”
Featured Image – Rahul Kukreja (via Unsplash)
Audio
Five Manchester artists we’ve been listening to this month | July 2025
Danny Jones
Hello again, it’s us: The Manc, or more specifically, our Audio North arm – back to talk about the music coming out of Greater Manchester that we’ve been listening to over the past month.
If you’re new here, it really is as simple as that, and whether they’re revered veterans of the region’s music scene or what we think might be the next up-and-coming thing, as long as it’s from ’round our way, we’ll give it a chance.
Five native artists, three recommended tracks from each and hopefully hours of exciting new listening if you play your cards right.
Headphones and playlists at the ready. Here’s what we had on in July.
Manchester music we’ve been into recently
1. poor effort
We’re kicking things off with an experimental project from Salford-born and Manchester-based musician and writer, Matty Dagger, whose new outing in the spoken word space immediately caught our attention when it came down the grapevine. It’s a bit alternative, a bit punk and very Manc. We love it.
Some might say it’s reminiscent of Yard Act and Sleaford Mods, which would be fair, but more specifically, our first listens gave us Stockport’s very own Hello Cosmos with a sprinkling of Oldham’s Seb Lowe (both previous monthly picks). The lyrical/vocal delivery is charmingly casual and anecdotal.
Dagger’s poor effort couldn’t be anything less than; there seems to be a very considered approach to the more electronic style of spoken word and poetry-driven music. You can complete the discography already, but we’d start with ‘you’re wrong, i’m right (symphony)’, ‘HMRC’, and then ‘City of Hope’.
Cool visual aesthetics going on too.
2. Victoria Jane
Next up is a big knee-jerking turn in genre and overall temperament, as if Dagger has been making us pay microscopic attention to every word and Greater Mancunian reference, this local musician hooked us in with her somewhat quieter but inviting timbre of voice and smooth, almost sleepy melodies at times.
Victoria Jane may have been born in London, having previously collaborated as part of the Vibbar collective, but having moved to 0161 as a kid and falling in love with Man United, she’s always immersed herself in the Northern way. The R’n’B act also presents BBC Radio 1 ‘Future Soul’ show.
Her work really hits all the notes you want, from smooth and soulful singing, to not quite voice cracks but soft, intentional breaks that often feel nigh on agonising – as if she’s into you and welcoming you to slump back the other way. ‘The One’, ‘Voicenote Freestyle’ and ‘On My Own’ are our picks.
Number three is, admittedly, another big whiplash when it comes to overall experience, but it’s one of the most unique musical discoveries we’ve made in a hit minute. This musical duo is called Phellotape, conceived by double bassist Alice Phelps and multi-instrumentalist producer Thomas ‘Twem’ Twemlow.
They met while playing in the queer alt-rock outfit, The Irrepressibles, but this project could be branded as anything from alternative and/or experimental to maybe even art pop. All we know is the multi-talented mix of instruments within almost every section, and pulling from numerous styles is pretty staggering.
Rather fittingly, there are only two recorded tracks to their name so far; ‘Rain’ is a quiet, atmospheric song that puts you in mind of London Grammar with a mix of the xx and Massive Attack, while ‘Hungry Ghost’ is quite easily one of the most interesting tunes we’ve heard in the past decade. No exaggeration.
4. 10cc
Fancing something more familiar for number four? Well, as a born and bred Stopfordian myself, every now and again I go back and admire some of the incredible names that recorded at the town’s famous Strawberry Studios – one of which is Stockport‘s very own 10cc. Great name, great band.
The moment I heard my then-teenage brother play ‘Donna’, I was baffled as to why he was playing what I then just dismissed as “old music”, before it quickly got stuck in my head. Is it their best tune? No. Does it still hold a special place in my head and heart? Yes. Do they have other standouts? Absolutely.
For the record, while most people recognise the likes of the controversial ‘Dreadlock Holiday’, I’d argue ‘Good Morning Judge’ is their best track and the first time I listened to it, I thought it was one of the coolest sounding intros ever. Still do. ‘I’m Not In Love’ with them, but they are a core childhood memory.
A hugely undercelebrated of Greater Manchester music history (Credit: AVRO/Dirk Annemans (via Wikimedia Commons)
5. Oasis
Speaking of legends who evoke nothing but feelings of hometown pride, legacy and pure admiration, it’d be the most see-through lie ever to pretend that we haven’t spent most of this last month listening to the almighty Oasis amid their comeback tour.
We had the pleasure of being there at Heaton Park and up on ‘Gallagher Hill’, which now has its own precious place in British music history, and July as a whole still feels akin to a fever dream and similar to what we imagine Glastonbury is like for those nearby when it takes over their entire universe.
July 2025 really was “biblical” and we don’t think we’ll ever get over it, so, last but not least, we’d thought we’d give a special shout-out to some of our favourite tracks that didn’t make the setlist. ‘Don’t Go Away’, ‘Shock of the Lightning’, ‘Round Are Way’. Done.
As The Masterplan proved, everything from the so-called ‘filler’ album tracks to those B-sides is better than most other bands could dream of. As you were x
The Manc -
16th June 2020 
