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Music

Who is Bryson Tiller and Why Should You Care?

The US rapper sold out his first ever UK show in less than ten seconds and has been trending on Twitter all day.

January's on a mad one right now. We've lost David Bowie and Alan Rickman, Weezer are releasing a White Album and a Soundcloud artist named Bryson Tiller was the UK's number 1 trending topic thanks to selling out one of his first London concerts in what seemed like about 10 seconds. Bad luck for those who skipped their 9am lecture to cop tickets – not only did they disappear faster than Iggy Azelea's career, they're now being re-sold at £150 a pop on tout sites. With that kind of money you could go to a Yeezy concert and still have spare change. You could go see Drake and be able to afford at least one bottle of reasonably priced champagne at the afterparty you've blagged your way into. Or better still, you could enjoy a short-mini break in the Cotswolds with the help of a Groupon voucher. For £150, the world is your oyster.

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But who's this Bryson Tiller and how can he have caused such a massive stir around his first ever UK show, and have both his first and second name be trending on Twitter? For the unaware who woke this morning and wondered why a percentage of the country were losing their shit over not getting tickets to a show by an artist they'd never heard about, we've put together a helpful guide that'll allow you to converse on the topic of Tiller with the confidence of someone who's been listening to "Don't" for longer than two days.

WHO IS HE?

Tiller is very much the product of a post-Drake world, an Aubrey Graham hook brought to life, kitted out with Chris Brown vocals and sprinkled with a pinch of Jeremih before being served to legions of thirsty Soundcloud fans scouring the web for hazy hook-up tracks. As for his roadman origin story, Tiller is 23 and hails from Kentucky, making him somewhat of a musical anomaly – it's rare that a musician of his pedigree hails from the hallowed lands that were once most famous for bluegrass. However, thanks to the magical power of the World Wide Web, Tiller has been able to make his music reach a far wider and perhaps, more appreciative audience. Which leads us onto…

HOW DO WE KNOW ABOUT HIM?

How do you think? Champagne Papi. Smoky trap beats layered with half spoken, half sung narratives about late night emotional vulnerability? Of course Drizzy would be all over this like Tyga on an adolescent's Instagram. Tiller's first nods came from the 6 God and Timbaland. If the gospel Tiller spills on the track "Ten Nine Fourteen" is to be believed, Timbs called up Tiller after a recommendation, they hung out, they listened to tracks from Jay Z's Magna Carta Holy Grail. Later down the line Drake popped up like a co-signing poltergeist and gifted Tiller a pair of Jordans. Ever get the feeling life is too easy for some people? Don't you wish you were blessed?

WHAT KIND OF MUSIC DOES HE MAKE?

He describes it as 'trapsoul', a moniker he's so proud of it became the title of his debut. "It's just trap and hip hop-influenced R&B, the perfect marriage between hip hop and R&B," he says, which is a long way of saying he sounds like The Weeknd. Certainly he seems to belong to a new stable of artists that place the most importance on intonation, beat and rhythm as opposed to lyrical content. That's not a dig – Tiller's music is built around melody first and foremost and it works; he's producing woozy, angsty anthems that connect with a generation that speak the language of 3am emoji texts and have been weaned on limiting their emotional expression to 140 characters. Songs like "Don't" understand that his audience is one that regards emotion conveyed through beat and delivery as superior to spelling it out with words.

Young Tiller in the cut…6 Side reppin as usual on my side

A photo posted by champagnepapi (@champagnepapi) on Jun 16, 2015 at 1:44am PDT

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JUST HOW BIG IS HIS UK FOLLOWING?

Pretty damn huge judging by today's ticket debacle regarding his headline show at Camden's KOKO. Even the music industry magazines are creaming over him, after "Don't" sold 47,000 copies in the UK alone. Lots of fans were left crying foul after the show appeared to sell out in 1 minute and touts then surfaced flogging the elusive things for a massive mark up. And it seems his support is mostly male in gender and roadman in nature, with one joker tweeting that when Tiller tries to pick a girl out of the crowd on "Don't", he'll be forced to grab a guy garbed in Air Forces instead.

OKAY, I'M SOLD. CAN I GO TO THE SHOW?

HAHAHAHAHA. Those tickets are gold dust right now – you've probably got more chance of bumping into Frank Ocean by the Islington KFC. Outside of organising a long dating based con to attain some, chances are slim. However, fans have been tweeting Tiller all morning begging him to add more dates to his UK stop: with demand this high it's very likely he'll acquiesce. So keep your eyes peeled for any rumblings of excitement in places like Crepe City and the Basement Facebook groups: these are the guys who are gonna get wind of it first.

For now though, just content yourself with donning a Palace shirt, downloading TRAPSOUL and tweeting repeatedly about how you've got an inside hook up for the new Yeezy Boosts. There: you've created your very own Bryson Tiller concert!

You can find Moya on Twitter: @Moya_Lm