Victory Lap Radio is energising London's grassroots rap scene

Dalston's Gillett Square is a storied community space. Over the years, it's hosted legendary block parties and a wide array of cultural events. Day to day, local people head to its mish-mash of colourful converted shipping containers and grab Ethiopian food, black coffee, or a fresh skin fade. Opposite, a block of gleaming silver industrial units houses the pioneering digital radio station NTS. Since the tail end of 2024, Victory Lap Radio — a grassroots platform dedicated to showcasing London's best young rappers, DJs and producers — has been broadcasting monthly from this key pin on London's cultural map. Having previously built their reputation via a monthly two-hour slot at Peckham station Balamii, Victory Lap's move has now given them increased independence and room to grow, with their own dedicated studio.

"To go to the next level, we needed our own space," says Joseph McDermott, founder of Victory Lap. "We needed full visual control and the option to shoot wherever, whenever. Femi [Adeyemi, founder of NTS] reached out, initially to home Victory Lap, but after speaking about my ideas I think he appreciated that it was bigger than he imagined. Being a one-man operation, I was beginning to hit a ceiling of what was possible so to now be able to lean on a platform as amazing and diverse as NTS… it's a blessing."

"Having 24-hour access to our own spot has allowed us to be in control," he continues. "It took us a lot of the summer to get the place up and running, we had full days where my friends came and helped paint the place. Instead of waiting for everything to be absolutely perfect and finished, we wanted to just start shooting, and the viewer can see it develop and grow over time with us."

That idea — natural growth, as a collective — has always been essential to Victory Lap. The project started in 2019 during a trip to New York, when McDermott and a few friends recorded some mixes for Brooklyn radio stations Half Moon and The Lot Radio and landed on 'Victory Lap' as a name to tie them together. After returning to the UK and securing a monthly Balamii slot, they began cultivating an energetic, charmingly unpolished live music space which took the DIY spark of grime's pirate radio days and merged it with a fresh, lighthearted contemporary UK rap energy, with a focus on spotlighting new talent.

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"It was initially just about creating a show where I could showcase my talented friends who rap, DJ, sing, and produce, to have different guests on each month as a snapshot of what's happening in the underground," McDermott explains. "The show came from a bunch of friends in the booth messing about and people like to watch that natural fun happen between some of their favourite artists." This atmosphere is aided by a fly-on-the-wall camera angle that allows viewers to observe from the top corner of the room, soaked in the music but stationed at arm's length.

"Some of people's favourite bits outside of the rapping are the jokes and laughs shared between performing," says McDermott. "That energy allows artists to be more experimental and to jump on beats maybe they wouldn't usually rap over - which is another part that I think resonates with people - the beats. We try to get a lot of variety of instrumentals from producers we love and a lot of the feedback we get on YouTube is about our beat selection, which separates us from what other people have going on." Whether it's UK rap heavyweight Dave flowing over a refix of Flukes' old-school grime instrumental 'Wifey Riddim' or former House of Pharaohs member Blaze YL gliding smoothly over a minimalist beat sampling Japanese composer Ryuichi Sakamoto, there's always space for something a little different.

When Dave and Central Cee rocked up on a VL set in June 2023 it catapulted the platform to new heights. A snippet of the pair shelling has now racked up more than 3 million views on YouTube (several other sets have accumulated over 200K). But while this shows the platform's cultural weight, Victory Lap isn't overly concerned with entertaining big names. The platform is about guiding a new generation of talent, offering MCs the space to experiment and grow alongside dynamic DJs that swerve cleverly between UK rap, drill, grime, hip hop, UKG, breakbeat, jungle and more. It's about allowing Gen Z rappers to demonstrate their flexibility and energy in a way that many within their generation — often unaccustomed to the rawness and spontaneity of pirate radio culture — lack exposure to.

"Victory Lap is a new age take on something we all know dearly and love," says McDermott. "It's a love letter to the old generations and the UK radio culture we all grew up on but something that the new generation can feel like is more anchored towards them."

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To establish the platform, McDermott's own musical background, and his pre-existing relationships with various talented young London musicians, were key. "It's one thing being an orchestrator who puts stuff together, but Joe is someone who's involved as well, he DJs and he does creative stuff, so he gets it," says El Londo, a West London-based producer who has regularly appeared on Victory Lap, perhaps most notably in the April 2023 launch show for his debut project 'THANKSLONDO'. "He's easy to get along with and that's really important when you're working with so many different DJs and artists and producers. When I see him outside, it's always good vibes. That's helped him to excel and be able to build and maintain all these relationships."

"I'm happy that I have the trust of these guys," McDermott reflects. "In this new age of social media, in an industry where lots of people are using others for personal gain, it's nice to know these guys respect and understand that I'm trying to help, support and give back. Before I was even DJ'ing, I was outside doing film photography and losing lots of money flying around documenting the scene… people know I don't have an ulterior motive."

The run-up to that landmark 'THANKSLONDO' show — which saw a range of respected MCs including Ashbeck, Namani, ayrtn and Capo Lee assemble to celebrate one of the platform's most familiar faces — sums up the casual, collaborative essence of Victory Lap. When the day rolled around, Londo hadn't managed to go through the numerous beats he'd been sent by producer friends, and recalls walking to Balamii's Peckham HQ holding his laptop on with headphones in, working through them. "When I got to the studio I was low-key stressing out," he laughs. "But it ended up going so smoothly… everyone came with bars, everyone was on good vibes, and the atmosphere was different that day, it felt like everyone knew exactly what they wanted to do."

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A show spearheaded by South London rapper SamRecks that summer had a similar energy. Featuring Victory Lap stalwarts like Ashbeck and Blaze YL alongside fresh faces like Japanese MC Jumadiba, the two-hour slot was capped off by an explosive performance of SamRecks' breakout single 'BACK PACK'. The set's climax, with the whole room rapping along, encapsulated the platform's identity.

"It's raw and authentic, it's what the UK music scene really came up off, with grime, and real rapping with a lot of people in the room and everyone vibing," SamRecks says. "That's why I really like Victory Lap, because it's bringing everything back to what music should be about — I feel like nowadays we don't have platforms like that. Everyone's tryna make sure their bars are the best, everyone's tryna come on top, but that's the fun part of it. You're never really satisfied with what you put out, you're trying to top it every single time."

This brings us to an important development within the world of Victory Lap. It probably wasn't McDermott's original intention, but the platform has also become a kind of educational hub; frequently, younger, less experienced rappers have ended up in rooms with established names like Dave, Central Cee, and Novelist, who made a short but sweet appearance on the December 2024 show. His technical skill and adaptability on the mic left a visible impact on the younger MCs around him, with soft nods turning to heavy head bops, screwfaces and smiles of admiration surging to the surface. It showed how Victory Lap bridges the gap between the second-wave grime movement that Novelist rode with in the mid-2010s and the more mellow UK rap landscape that has grown in popularity since.

"We take massive influence from old grime sets," says McDermott. "We wanted to bring back the high energy and spontaneity of those sets… to restore the feeling, especially after what had been a somewhat barren time, for live rapping on radio in the UK, which has always been a huge part of the culture. The show was born from friends getting together and messing around and that's where some of the best Victory Lap moments have come from. The audience loves seeing their favourite artists getting gassed for each other, cracking jokes between performing and creating this fun, supportive bubble… we've squashed out some of the competitive, clash elements of those old sets naturally… not even necessarily intentionally, it's just happened because we're all genuinely friends and everyone is very supportive of each other."

The success of this formula has allowed Victory Lap to "scale to a new level", according to its founder. But the mission remains the same: "curating the best of the overground/underground and priding ourselves on Victory Lap being the platform that can really connect those dots together in an organic way."

"I'm just a genuine, passionate fan," McDermott says. "Whenever I try to make anything for the channel, I always try to think what I would want to see as a teenager growing up, bored at home and on YouTube. Essentially, Victory Lap is my way to platform artists and give back to something I love."

Listen to Victory Lap Radio

Fred Garratt-Stanley is a freelance writer, follow him on Instagram