You may not have recognised him during Dave’s performance of Black at the Brits, but the producer helped shape the sound of
UK rap and grime
Fraser T Smith is exhausted but buoyed. The veteran producer joined Dave at the Brits the night before we speak, helping out on the rapper’s single Black, an already extraordinary unpicking of ingrained
racism sent interstellar by a new verse touching on
Boris Johnson (“The truth is our prime minister’s a real racist”), Windrush and Grenfell. “You feel this huge rush of human energy,” Smith says on the phone, “and when Dave did his last verse, I felt the emotion move right through me.” Smith co-executive produced Dave’s debut album, Psychodrama, which earned the rapper a best album Brit to go alongside the 2019 Mercury prize.
Despite not coming from a grime or rap background, Smith has built a considerable reputation as UK hip-hop’s go-to producer. It is all a far cry from his start in music. After growing up in Buckinghamshire and moving to west
London, Smith began his career in the early 90s as a session player and touring musician, working with the likes of Rick Wakeman. In 1999, he met a then-unknown Craig David, working on his first two albums, before collaborating with a host of Britain’s most successful artists including Sam Smith and Adele. More recently, Smith has become known for his work with MCs such as Kano, Ghetts, Stormzy and Dave, helping them achieve success beyond the underground (both Stormzy albums reached No 1 in the UK).