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
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Aitch is playing a huge hometown set at The Warehouse Project
Danny Jones
Aitch has booked another massive hometown slot as the Moston-born rapper will be playing none other than the home of clubbing here in Manchester: The Warehouse Project.
Joining the WHP25 programme, which is already stacked right up until New Year’s Eve, the 25-year-old is the latest rapper to take on the famous club venue, following the likes of Little Simz and Loyle Carner, who played the event series back in October.
Aitch‘s new album, 4 – which denotes the number of studio LPs he’s made to date and acts as a nod to the M4 postcode – was released on June 20 and has already proved popular with fans.
Having just played Parklife as well as a secret set at Glastonbury this year, he’s already performed most of his biggest slots for the year, but the ever-rising local rapper thought he’d given Manchester another big gig and one more chance to see him live in 2025.
As an increasingly popular main event act across the UK, a headline show at Warehouse Project is nothing short of a massive deal for any artist, let alone a Manc.
The date itself will see him see him performing songs from the new record, which is his second to hit the top 10, as well as a selection of multiple platinum-selling hits.
Sharing details of early access tickets on Instagram stories shortly after the announcement, the UK hip-hop and grime star reminded fans: “This is the only chance to see me shut this sh*t down this year!!!”
It’s actually his only major domestic show in full stop, so if you’re a die-hard fan of Harrison Armstrong and his music, you really don’t want to miss this one.
He’s not the only big name coming to Mayfield this season either.
WHP25 /// FISHER – TICKETS ON SALE NOW
Don’t miss out on what’s set to be an unmissable night – packed with infectious energy from beginning to end – as he takes over Depot Mayfield alongside a lineup coming very soon.
Featured Images — Jahnay Tennai (supplied)/Aitch (via TikTok)
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Five Manchester artists we’ve been listening to this month | June 2025
Danny Jones
Hello there. That greeting may be giving Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars vibes, and we can’t lie, we have listened to some cantina music while working this month… but not as much as we’ve been immersing ourselves in more new Manchester artists.
You should know the drill by now, and it is very much a what-it-says-on-the-tin scenario, but every few weeks, we round up some of the music – all crucially hailing from the Greater Manchester area – that we’ve been listening to of late.
We don’t discriminate when it comes to genre either. There’s only one simple rule: if it’s good, then we listen to it and then, hopefully, so do you.
Get your playlists at the ready.
Five Manc music artists we’ve been listening to recently
1. Arkayla
First up for June are relative newcomers Arkayla, whose name is inspired by “a terrible Oasis demo” from 1991 (their words, not ours – thought it is…) of the same name, a.k.a. ‘I Will Show You’, in which describe Liam Gallagher’s now legendary as once sounding “like a dodgy Ian Brown impressionist.”
However, there’s nothing dodgy about these lot and, thankfully, they’re in an era when you don’t have to hand out tapes recorded in the Boardwalk basement on the street to be heard. The Manchester band, which only formed in 2020, may be Standing on the Shoulder of Giants, but they’ve already got a sound.
There’s an unmistakable British indie element to them and hints at everything from The Kooks to The Lathums, but most notably, there are ’60s guitar notes and some real maturity already. Standouts include ‘Ella Malone’, the acoustic version of ‘Lost In a Valentine’, where the lead singer, Cal Blakebrough, really shines, and ‘Rita’ is such an addictive track.
They don’t get more unknown, undiscovered, but sure to be up-and-coming than iNNAFIELD, who are a female-fronted psychedelia-forward five-piece with roots in Brighton but building a career in 0161. Having recently shone at The Deaf Institute playing a support slot at Academy 1, they have our interest.
If a glimpse of lead singer Jessie Amy Leask’s curly hair, 70s belts and long, flowing skirts plants Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac in your mind, you’d be right in thinking so; a listen to their other live tracks scattered across their socials confirms there’s plenty of other influences going on too, though.
Now, they’ve only got one proper recording out on Spotify called ‘Tell Me What’s On Your Mind’, but we’ve had it popping up on our algorithms everywhere, and we can see why: there’s soft, twinkly strumming, soft almost sleepy vocals before a nice big breakout at the end. Glorious stuff.
No, not that one, the Princess of Monaco isn’t back from the dead, but ‘r Grace Kelly, who is based right here in Greater Manchester, is playing her part in the ongoing country revival taking place across the music world, offering her soulful voice and faux American-folk vibes to our ears.
She may not be a Mancunian by birth, having moved from New Zealand to our shores back in 2022, and although the weather change might have been a big sea change for her, there’s no culture shock to be found in her style; from the audio to the aesthetic, it still somehow feels pretty authentic.
Uplifting acoustic guitars, drum brush strokes, solos, Southern-twang harmonies – you name it, all the ingredients are there. The thing is, if you spend enough time immersing yourself in a genre, you can still pull off tracks like ‘Carry On’, ‘San Jose’ and the intimate ‘For Us To Change’.
We’re really lane switching when it comes to genre this month; maybe it’s because festival season is in full swing and we’re just being exposed to so much different stuff in a short space of time, all we know is we’re not complaining about it.
And neither should you, especially when you’ve got names like hip-hop, grime, soul and flag-flying Afrobeats rising star, Prido, being platformed. Blending all the above with R’n’B and a sprinkling of not just Northern but easily detectable Manc slant, it makes his music stand out in the ever-thriving space.
‘Free Ur Mind’ was the first track we ever heard, so we’ve struggled to shake that as our favourite, but ‘DND’ is a supremely dancey but chill example of laid-back of the genre that you need in your mixes this summer, and we also have a soft spot for his verse on the sensual ‘Lifeboat’ by Prima.
Last but not least on our list of new Manchester artists for this June, we’ve got local DJ Josh Baker, whose name you might recognise from the headlines surrounding Parklife 2025, as his set was unfortunately cancelled due to problems out of his control.
Festival-goers flocked to The Matinee Stage for a highly anticipated back-to-back bill of Baker followed by Dutch counterpart Chris Stussy, both of whom have thrilled some of the biggest club crowds in the country – sadly, he didn’t get to do so this time. That being said, we thought we’d give him a shout-out.
We’ll confess to only having got around to his discography following this news, but ‘Back It Up’, ‘Something To Me’, and ‘You Don’t Own Me’ with Prospa and RAHH are all bangers. We’re looking forward to listening to more.
And that should just about do you; there are five artists and, at the very least, 15 new tracks for you to give a go – there should be at least of few of them you like.
But, let’s be honest: be it unheard, new, current, old or anything in between, Manchester music very rarely ends up being filed in the skippable category.
Then again, you can always check out last month’s list of Manc artists from last month and see if you get a better hit ratio.
The Manc -
16th June 2020 
