In 2024, the underground will prevail over all, and someone who has been doing the rounds on that circuit—both on radio and the live stage—is South East Londoner Kruz Leone, one of grime’s brightest rising stars. Last year, Kruz’s work-rate went into overdrive—dropping projects like O.T. Trips (The Re-Whip) and Top 3, a collab project with Duppy and Logan OLM, as well as delivering impressive freestyles for the likes of Sir Spyro’s Sounds Of The Verse on 1Xtra—to the point he was barring next to veterans such as Dizzee Rascal, Jme, and P Money. Armed and dangerous with his scattergun flow, Kruz’s animated stage presence translates to every track he puts out, capturing that live essence on wax for his locked-in fanbase and confirming what we’ve all been thinking for a while: he has what it takes to be a true grime great. Keep it locked to his socials all 2024 if you want to see where the future of this sound is headed. —Joseph ‘JP’ Patterson