K Koke (No 1,320)

Reading this on a mobile? Listen here Hometown : London. The lineup : Kevin Georgiou (vocals). The background: K Koke is a 27-year-old Greek-Cypriot from the notorious Stonebridge estate in north-west London who has just become the first British rapper to sign to Jay-Z's label. The erstwhile member of the USG crew has been growing in popularity ever since he began issuing mixtapes a couple of years back, but those underground sales and attendant YouTube views – anything between 10 million and 15 million, depending on who you believe, but let's face it, neither of those numerals is too shabby – look set to be converted into actual proper sales with the release of his debut single for Roc Nation . It's also his first release since coming out of prison – on the eve of his breakthrough, he was charged with the attempted murder of an unidentified 27-year-old footballer, who was shot in the back at Harlesden train station in March last year along with four teenagers. Georgiou was remanded in custody pending trial in October. He immediately proclaimed his innocence and, in an interview given from jail , implied he was "fitted up" by police overly swayed by his earlier, youthful involvement in local crime. "They have no fucking evidence," he said as the Free K Koke campaign kicked off in earnest. "They have an idiot picture that ain't even me. It's cos of my previous I'm here. You're guilty till proven innocent." He was eventually released from jail in November after seven months on remand. And yet it's not hard to conclude that, given the 4-Real-obsessed world of hip hop, the two facts – his association with the murder and burgeoning popularity – are inextricably linked. It all feels a bit like a UK 50 Cent scenario, where a rapper enters the public eye riding the crest of a "negative" wave of publicity, with street kudos and bad-boy credentials in spades . Fiddy did it with In Da Club , and although K Koke's Roc For Life, the first track from his January 2013 official debut album I Ain't Perfect, isn't quite in that irresistible realm, it does feel appropriately epic and climactic, with a cameo from US rapper Wale positioning Georgiou as a Brit boy with ambitions to reach beyond Europe, and a guest vocal from Rita Ora to show that the hard man from Wembley with the off-colour past isn't averse to softening his vision for mainstream consumption. We're still waiting to hear more advance tracks from that album, but a listen to music from his Pure Koke Volume 1 mixtape suggests a Wretch 32-ish talent, with triumphalist messages and accounts of hard-won wisdom undercut by sorrow and paranoia. And if it feels a little artless at times, one would hope that a good producer will be able to match K Koke's powerful, poignant tales of outer London strife and create the perfect melodramatic context for this credible new voice. The buzz : " The heat on K Koke is reaching epic proportions. " The truth : He's the real thing . Most likely to : Do bars behind bars. Least likely to : Prefer HMP to HMV. What to buy : Roc For Life is released by Roc Nation. File next to : Wretch 32, Giggs, Smiler, Ghostface Killah. Links : http://mixtapemadness.co.uk/KKoke/PureKokeVolume1/152 Wednesday's new band : Pablo Nouvelle.