I haven't really listened to him and if I'm honest, "The A Team" is seriously overplayed and really gets on my tits. That video was pretty good though.
The grime artists that collabed with him were already better known than him at the time.
Especially JME and Ghetts.
I think he's excellent at songwriting, and his collaborations are excellent, particularly Young Guns (Lewi White/Yasmin/Devlin), Family (P Money) and Goodbye To You (Dot Rotten), but I'm not a great fan of his solo stuff.
Sofa is quite a good song though.
Plus listening to him introduced me to Mikill Pane who is really very good.
Yeah at the time they were, but their popularity was still relative. I could tell when Sheeran started doing his collabs that he was gonna be big because he appeals to the indie market as well as giving them this image of grime in a 'safe', sanitised format. I think the MCs who did collabs with him knew this, it's a business. Iunno though, that's just my feeling.
I really like him. The A Team is by far his worst song. There's always a backlash against something that's popular, ***** that think they are non-conformist.
I had a dream last night he was on my uni course, and I went to his wedding and he was marrying Lily from How I Met Your Mother, I was the chief bridesmaid
Haha! You reckon? A Team is overplayed though. Especially when I have to listen to the same local radio station all day every day at work. A lot of my uni friends like him I just haven't really paid him any attention, s'all. He's just sort of....there.