In Session: Novelist & Grandmixxer

Novelist (pictured) isn't short of confidence."I'm a Topshop man, I'm a dan, aka the bossman," he spits on '1 Sec', the devastating collaboration he and Mumdance penned for XL Recordings last year. With such an influential label in his discography, it's no surprise the grime artist sings, or, in his case, MCs, his own praises so much.

We're doing exactly that, too, this month as he fronts the cover of the March issue (out tomorrow) of the magazine. Is he worthy? Course he is.

At just 19 years old, the South Londoner has already worked with some of the biggest names around. The end of last year saw him team up with Chase and Status on 'Bigger Man Sound' as part of their 'London Bars' series and he's a featured artist on Baauer's debut album on Scottish label LuckyMe. Quite remarkably, the track he's on, 'Day Ones', got its first airing on The Late Show in the States. About 3.5 million were thought to be tuning in at the end of last year, so that's an awful lot of people that would've heard Nov's bars.

Props have also come from Jamie xx (you can hear Nov laughing at the end of 'I Know There's Gonna Be (Good Times)' and there's a whole lot of love coming from Skepta. Just check their respective Instagram accounts for evidence.

Even though the last 12 months have seen him hook up with some of dance music's finest, it was 2014's 'Take Time', another collab with Mumdance, that really made us take notice. How could you not when a then-17-year-old had no qualms in claiming "Novelist, I'm a Lewisham don"?