Stormzy Swapped Bars for Baritone and Covered Carlos Santana in the 1Xtra Live Lounge

He embarked on his first full proper UK tour in October, released a new track last week, got himself a weekly show on Apple’s Beats Radio, went to South Africa to make a Noisey documentary, and now’s announced his forthcoming acting debut and covered Carlos Santana (of all people) in the live lounge. It’s not weird to start wondering if there are two, three maybe four Michael Omari’s wandering around, calling themselves Stormzy and generally bossing it, like some sort of grime version of Bladerunner but with more MOBOs and less harrowing dystopia.

Big Mike hit up Trevor Nelson’s 1Xtra live lounge on Friday with a full live band to perform a mini set that included a montage of “Shut Up” with new track “Standard”. Which was as you’d expect, but the more Stormzy develops as an artist the more we’re privy to how he likes to get his heart out now and again and croon like a honeyed soul man. We saw a bit of it on “Don’t Need” last month, and he swapped bars for baritone again for this performance with a pretty damn tender lovesick ghoulash of Krept & Konan’s “Falling” and Carlos Santana’s “Maria Maria”. Watch below.

Videos by VICE

Over the weekend, Stormzy was also announced as the first cast member of forthcoming UK film Brotherhood; the final film in the Noel Clarke trilogy that previously produced Kidulthood and Adulthood. Watch the teaser for that below.

Kidulthood, Adulthood & now…BROTHERHOOD. Gassed to reveal I’ll be making my acting debut in 2016@TheHoodMovies pic.twitter.com/s9VkhfqFT2

November 29, 2015