aaamusic | On 16, Mar 2012

Signed to 679 Records (Plan B & The Streets) 2012’s smart money is already on the young charismatic rapper by the name of Benny Banks.

 

Hailing from Islington, North London, Banks first picked up the pen and started rapping after a night out with friends back in 2009. Since then, he’s quickly garnered a flurry of online buzz and exploded to the forefront with his laid back drawl and powerfully gritty tales of UK city life.

 

On the one hand he’s a regular young man from the inner city coming up from humble beginnings, facing hardships that many of his peers growing up in similarly socially deprived areas across the UK will relate to. Yet, it’s his rare talent as a rapper that sets him apart. Benny takes his everyday reality and turns his emotions and experiences into gripping music, delivering it with a refreshing confidence and ease.

 

He tore down Charlie Sloth’s Fire In The Booth series on BBC 1Xtra earlier last year, causing an immediate furore of positive feedback from listeners who were eager to put a face to the flow, demanding to know where this talent on the mic was came from. He followed that up this year in style with an SBTV Warm-Up Session performance that wowed over half a million people.   

 

Over the past year, this unique talent has so far earned him over 3 million YouTube views, thousands of downloads of his Mixtape ‘Patiently Waiting Volume 1’, a tour with Dappy and collaborations with the likes of Maverick Sabre.