His story starts with a freestyle. In summer 2017, with just one song to his name, Unknown T went viral off his verse in a Tim Westwood Crib Session, drawing the eyes and ears of rap fans who all had the same question: who was this cool, deep-voiced rapper, and what would he drop next? Born Daniel Lena in London in 1999, Unknown T grew up on a mix of grime and faster genres like dancehall. The latter can be heard in his poppy flavour of UK drill. His 2018 smash “Homerton B” fleshes out the viral freestyle into a banger for the dance floor. And his 2020 album Rise Above Hate, released after he spent seven months in jail before being cleared of murder, targets the criminal justice system that held up T’s own life.