Michael Ebenezer Kwadjo Omari Owuo Jr. (born 26 July 1993), known professionally as Stormzy, is an English-Ghanaian rapper, singer, and songwriter[4].

In 2014, he gained attention on the UK underground music scene through his Wicked Skengman series of freestyles over classic grime beats.

[11] On 22 September 2022, Stormzy released the single "Mel Made Me Do It" accompanied by an 11-minute music video featuring popular artists, actors and sports figures such as Usain Bolt and José Mourinho.

[14] Michael Ebenezer Kwadjo Omari Owuo Jr.[15][16] was born on 26 July 1993[17] in Thornton Heath, a subdivision of Croydon, at the south of London.

[27][26] After garnering attention on the UK underground music scene via his Wicked Skengman series of freestyles over classic grime beats,[5][6] Stormzy released his debut EP Dreamers Disease independently in July 2014.

[32] On 12 December 2015, Stormzy performed "Shut Up" during British heavyweight boxer Anthony Joshua's ring-walk for his fight versus Dillian Whyte.

[36][37] After a year's hiatus from social media, Stormzy returned in early February 2017 via a series of billboard campaigns across London displaying the hashtag #GSAP 24.02.

[45] The performance featured a speech by the politician David Lammy that discussed the proportion of black and minority ethnic people in the British criminal justice system[46] and, during "Vossi Bop", Stormzy encouraged the audience to join him in chanting "Fuck the Government and fuck Boris" - the latter a reference to former London Mayor Boris Johnson's Conservative Party leadership campaign.

[46] Stormzy wore a Union Jack stab vest designed by the artist Banksy, which was widely perceived as a comment on the rise in knife crime in London.

[11] In the 2020 action-adventure game Watch Dogs: Legion, Stormzy appears as a fictionalized version of himself, offering a mission in which his character plays the track "Rainfall" from Heavy is the Head.

[50] The video for Rainfall appears in the mission, showing Stormzy's motion capture performance over locations, graphics, and the fictionalized future London setting of the game.

[51] Stormzy was recognised for both his contributions to music and his activism, landing him at number 5 in the Top 10 of the annual Powerlist in 2020,[52] with an estimated net worth of £20 million in 2020.

[61] On 24 June 2017, Stormzy performed a chant of "Oh, Jeremy Corbyn" to the tune of The White Stripes' "Seven Nation Army" on the Other Stage at the Glastonbury Festival.

[65] On 21 February 2018, Stormzy performed a freestyle at the Brit Awards, calling out May for her inaction in the aftermath of the Grenfell Tower fire the previous year.

[83] In November 2022, Stormzy announced a partnership with Adidas and ten other brands, including football clubs Manchester United and Fulham, as well as Sky Sports and Goal.com, for a programme called "#Merky FC", set to launch in January 2023 and aiming to increase the representation of Black and mixed-Black British people in the football industry, by providing long-term, paid professional placements at the brands involved in the initiative.

[84][88] In July 2018, it was announced that the Penguin Random House division William Heinemann was to launch a new publishing imprint in partnership with Stormzy, called #Merky Books.

[89] The imprint launched with Stormzy's first book, Rise Up, in autumn 2018, followed by Taking Up Space: The Black Girl's Manifesto for Change by Chelsea Kwakye and Ore Ogunbiyi in summer 2019.

[90][91] In October 2021, #Merky Books released Keisha the Sket, a viral serialised novel from the mid-2000s written by a Black London teenager in text-speak slang; the print publication includes both the original and a rewrite in standard English.

"[93] An inaugural winner[94] of the prize, Hafsa Zayyan's We Are All Birds of Uganda was published in 2021 by #Merky Books,[95][96] and was shortlisted for the 2022 Glass Bell Award.