hip-hop

Trim

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East London MC and former Roll Deep member whose deadpan, sidelong bars have long drawn leftfield producers to him — grime at its most abstract.

Trim, born Javan Daniel Winston St. Prix, grew up in Bow, east London, and joined Roll Deep in 2003. He featured on the crew's Creeper mixtapes and their debut album In At the Deep End, contributing to the singles "When I'm Ere" and "Heat Up". He began work on the follow-up, Rules and Regulations, but left after a falling out with fellow MC Flowdan before it was released in 2007.

On his own he formed a collective called The Circle and worked at a prolific rate, putting out ten independent mixtapes, which he has described as training rather than attempts at a definitive record. 2011 alone brought four mixtapes alongside a collaboration with Skream, an EP with Mark Pritchard for Planet Mu, and a single on Butterz.

He developed a style set apart from most of his peers: slow, deadpan delivery, oblique wordplay, and a tendency to sit slightly behind or across the beat rather than riding it. That approach made him a favourite of producers working outside grime's mainstream, and his single "Confidence Boost", produced by James Blake, existed as a dubplate for years before its release on R&S Records in 2012.

A planned album for Rinse Recordings, tentatively titled Crisis, fell apart in 2013 after Trim grew frustrated with the label. He continued independently, releasing the single "Vending Machine" and mixtapes Fresh Trim and NFA in 2014, before signing to James Blake's label 1-800 DINOSAUR for the EP "RPG/Man Like Me" and the album 1-800 DINOSAUR Presents Trim, both out in 2016.

His records tend to be sparse and strange, with the vocal left exposed, and he has recorded with figures from the experimental electronic world alongside grime producers such as Mark Pritchard and Roachee. He also appeared on Commodo's How What Time in 2016, on the track "Itchin".

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