Let there be no mistake, Master Shortie - rapper, entrepreneur - samplemeister - indie/rap pioneer and musical trail-blazer - is a man who always gets what he wants. This, after all, is a self-made 20-year-old artist who simply doesn't play by anyone's rules but his own. A man who has been recording raps off his own back and without any major label backing since he was 12 and is totally in charge of all of his own promotion, record releases, styling and marketing. As a result he's become the poster boy of a DIY underground scene that represents everything that's exciting and unique about UK music today, and all the while making the kind of vibrant, nail-you-to-the-groove 80s tinged electro-hop that puts him alongside Black Kids, Cool Kids and any other kind of kids that are redefining what 21st Century, post-industry music can be. ...show more

Let there be no mistake, Master Shortie - rapper, entrepreneur - samplemeister - indie/rap pioneer and musical trail-blazer - is a man who always gets what he wants. This, after all, is a self-made 20-year-old artist who simply doesn't play by anyone's rules but his own. A man who has been recording raps off his own back and without any major label backing since he was 12 and is totally in charge of all of his own promotion, record releases, styling and marketing. As a result he's become the poster boy of a DIY underground scene that represents everything that's exciting and unique about UK music today, and all the while making the kind of vibrant, nail-you-to-the-groove 80s tinged electro-hop that puts him alongside Black Kids, Cool Kids and any other kind of kids that are redefining what 21st Century, post-industry music can be.

Born Theo Kerlin he moved South London. (with his mum and sister at the age of six), Shortie was already something of a music aficionado - his dad ran an East London jazz bar throughout his childhood and he grew up listening to everything from Prince to Aerosmith to Run DMC. After a short stint at the Brit School at the age of 14 (he soon dropped out, claiming "it wasn't me, it didn't suit me"), he started recording and producing his own adolescent hip-hop songs with producers and an underground reggae singer called Sparky. He'd rap about his experiences with girls and his hatred of being stereotyped, indulging his love of electronica, hip-hop and indie to create a brand of alternative hip-hop all his own.

The two songs he recorded in his early teens took influence from the neo-soul underground New York Backpack rappers, Mos Def, Andre 3000, Prince, Paul Simon, Terence Trent Darby and Tracy Chapman, and certainly weren't what the average rap toe-dipper might call 'grime'. Nabbing support slots with American urban acts such as ATL at the Hackney Empire, the Scala and Shepherd's Bush Empire from the age of 16, Master Shortie honed his art writing and recording with all manner of dance, rap and rock acts. As something of a genre-hopping pioneer, Shortie was writing songs with guitar bands long before urban acts collaborating with indie bands or pop producers became the chart-topping norm. Ironically, it's Shortie's charm, energy and individual style - the iris-scorching baseball caps, cuddly crunk accoutrements and the jeans of a Kings Of Leon - that set him apart from the crowd. ...show less