If you take hip-hop from afar and don’t look too deeply you may be under the impression that the art form has given way to nothing but crass commercialization. But really, that’s an illusion. There are people making great hip-hop all over the world. In every city there are cats going about the art of hip-hop the right way, imbibing their music with respect for the form, the trail-blazers from the past.

I don’t think of London as a hotbed of hip-hop but somewhere in that concrete jungle OthaSoul are making the goods – Real, gritty, honest hip-hop without shtick or pretension. Their recently release album, The Remedy, is one of the finest, smoothest pieces of art you’re going to put in your ears this year and definitely not something you should be sleeping on. The album is city hip-hop in the most classic sense of the word. I’ve never been to London, but it sounds how I imagine the city feels – heavy breath holding up a pulsing heart, tense and relaxed at once, straddling light and dark. Listen to it, cop it, spread it around because it’s important stuff and music that every hip-hop fan should be introduced to.

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1. Do you remember the first album you bought with your own money? Do you still listen to it? Favourite track?

Louis VI: I think it was Nirvana... either that or Quality by Talib Kweli but I think it was Nirvana. 'Come As You Are' was a tuuuuune.

Dozer: Real talks… I got Tubular Bells by Mike Oldfield on CD when i was like 10. I don’t know why, I just saw that shit in Virgin Megastore, took it home and listened to it like the weird ass kid I was. It’s actually kinda tragic, cos I didn’t really get into hip hop til the MP3 age had kicked off. So I was getting everything from my boys and just downloading shit. Common was my favourite artist at the time, so me and my homie ran out to go get Universal Mind Control on CD when it came out. Got home, listened to it once, never listened to that piece of shit ever again. Mad disappointing!