Amid the boasts on Khabib, the first song of Central Cee’s debut album, lurks the line “I been in the charts for 18 weeks”. The track – named for an undefeated Russian mixed martial arts fighter – is a rare moment of understatement. The London rapper has spent 18 weeks in the Top 10 alone: he’s actually been in the singles chart for 97 weeks since his first crossover hit, Loading, arrived in late 2020.
By anyone’s metric, Central Cee had a very good 2021 indeed: a gold album for his first mixtape, Wild West; six hit singles – eight if you count his collaboration with D-Block Europe and his appearance on a remix of Ed Sheeran’s Bad Habits – and three nominations at the Brits. Thanks to a guest slot on FKA twigs’ Measure of a Man, he even ended up on the soundtrack of the most recent Kingsman film, seldom noted for boosting UK trap.
