Potter Payper

Known for his relentless flow and peerless storytelling skills, the British rapper Jamel Bousbaa was born on 15 November 1990 in London, England, and started performing under the moniker Potter Payper in the early 2010s. Born to a British-Irish mother and an Algerian father, he grew up on the Gascoigne Estate in the London borough of Barking and developed a taste for rap at an early age. Potter Payper began his musical journey in 2010 with the mixtape The Philosophers Chrome, followed by Training Day (2013), which quickly attained cult status in the British hip-hop scene. After dropping the EPs 24 and One Time in 2015, he returned with the sequel mixtape Training Day 2, becoming somewhat of an underground legend in the process. In the following years, he rubbed elbows with some of British rap’s biggest names, namely Giggs, Stormzy, and Young Adz, and released the EPs Pay Per View (2017), Regina Vs Jamel Bousbaa (2018), and 2020 Vision (2020). Written during a short prison stint for drug charges, Training Day 3, the third instalment of his rap trilogy, arrived in 2020 and climbed to Number 3 in the UK. The mixtape’s success garnered the attention of Def Jam Recordings, who signed Potter Payper to their UK subsidiary 0207 in early 2021. “Topshottas Freestyle,” his first release for a major label, saw the light in May 2021 and entered the UK Official Singles Chart at Number 60. Several months later, he cracked the UK Top 10 once again with another mixtape, Thanks For Waiting, which peaked at Number 8. In 2022, his song "Gangsteritus" featuring Tiggs Da Author was propelled to Number 12 on the UK singles chart—his first UK Top 40 single—largely thanks to its appearance in the hit show Top Boy. In May 2023, he took his storytelling skills to new heights with the release of his debut studio album for Def Jam Recordings, Real Back in Style, which yielded the singles "Blame Brexit," "Multifaceted," and "Corner Boy." The following year, he snagged the top spot on the UK Hip-Hop and R&B Albums Chart with the Thanks for Hating mixtape; his seventh full-length studio tape to date. He dropped a new mixtape, Nightmare Before Christmas, in November 2024. The LP went to number three on the UK R&B chart and number 30 on the Official Albums chart.