iAm1 - Watching

Since meeting at Westminster Uni in 2008, the enigmatic duo that is iAm1 has set about a delicately artful fusion of urban tropes with a more subtle folk melodiousness. It's an intriguing combo of genres and influences, but on current single Watching, the merits are self-evident. Sure, there's flavours of Ed Sheeran and Maverick Sabre in the wise man of the streets sort of thing going on, but Watching strikes far closer, and keener to the heart.

Accompanied by a deeply arresting hand-drawn animated video, Watching slips nicely alongside the current raft of urban contemporaries taking the UK by storm right now, but with a real tenderness not yet cornered by any of them yet. There's an artistic ethos that goes beyond mere genre categories and while Watching feels at heart like it could easily become a big 'radio' track, there's a stirring sentimentality to its string-washed closing moments that marks it out as something more.

UK rap has been missing a good touch of sentimentality of late, and iAm1 do much to redress that balance.

The Watching EP is released on the 19th March.