K-Trap, AKA 27-year-old drill pioneer Devonte Perkins, used to perform wearing a balaclava, which the rapper has explained wasn’t to avoid surveillance or look like a wrong’un, but a tool to let him develop his artistry without people knowing who he was. The decision paid off. Recent mixtape The Last Whip II landed in the Top 20, Stormzy is a fan and K-Trap’s releases have featured Giggs, Fredo and Skepta. All of which has left the Londoner somewhere between underground and mainstream: playing smaller venues, but selling them all out.
The rapper bounds on stage in Manchester after a DJ build up (“Everyone say K … Trap!”) and plainly never needed the mask for visual impact. In a white jacket, he’s charismatic and confident. “Manny, I love that energy,” he yells to the city. The teenage prisoner turned reformed rapper offers raw, unflinching detail about gangland with a bone-dry sense of humour. In Spoilt, he yells “When we got caught, we caught amnesia”, while Manners helpfully describes politely letting an old lady pass by when carrying a “tool”.
