London rapper Kwadwo Adu Genfi Amponsah, aka Kojey Radical, worked in a variety of artistic mediums before trying his hand at music. Beginning at age ten, he spent nine years training as a dancer; he wrote poetry; and he graduated from the London College of Fashion with a BA in fashion illustration. He didn’t begin releasing music until 2014, when he was in his early 20s, but at 27 he’s focused entirely on rapping. A September Guardian review of one of his athletic, fashion-forward performances suggests that this streamlining of his interests had paid off: “Whether he is charging about furiously during the set’s hyper-masculine grime phase, or unleashing nimble retro-funk micro-gestures later on, Radical moves like mercury: fluidly, with a shimmer.” Radical’s music feels ahead of the curve, cycling through a myriad of pop-friendly sounds and fitting them into his stylishly clean, effervescent hip-hop. On 2019’s Cashmere Tears (Asylum UK/Warner UK), he cuts a path through modern funk, bending retro synths and deep rhythmic grooves into futuristic shapes; on the title track, Radical delivers loose verses that reinvigorate the classic sound of the tune’s slinking, robotic talk-box vocals. v
Versatile London rapper Kojey Radical veers into funk on Cashmere Tears
