Ben “Ty” Chijioke carved out a career for himself in the early 2000s when UK hip-hop was still underground. The British-Nigerian MC helped raise the game of homegrown conscious rap—short on braggadocio but replete with clever rhymes—especially on the Mercury-nominated 2003 album Upwards, which featured the effervescent, jumping “Wait a Minute”. Tracks like “Brixton Baby” are the perfect confluence of US-style jazz-rap and London-raised street smarts, while Ty’s meta-awareness and sharp observational deconstructions won him an army of admirers, including Roots Manuva and De La Soul, both of whom he worked with before his tragic death in 2020.