One of the busiest MC’s of our time? Rap battles, releasing his own music, touring as a comedian, playing Live at the Apollo & Russel Howards Good News, getting married and having a family. However, back in 2000, Doc Brown (Otherwise known as Ben Bailey Smith) was taking part in rap battles across London and in some of the toughest places like Dingwalls nightclub, London Soho, and the Swiss Centre in Leicester Square.

Smith’s growing reputation as a personality of the underground scene made him the host of a monthly event at his friend’s record shop Deal Real on Great Marlborough Court, off Carnaby Street in the West End. In 2017, Doc made a comeback with his album ‘Stemma’. A fantastic return to the rap scene, produced by Ali Bla Bla, Cores, Midas Touch Music & EXT. Also including special guest appearances on the album by Luc Skyz, Example & Mikill Pane. Before releasing the material, a friend of his told him that it had to be something that teens nowadays would listen to, a laugh was Docs response as Grime was starting to become mainstream in 2017, he was not going to change just to fit in with what was popular at the time, Stemma is an old school Hip-Hop/Rap album purely about the lyrics and simple beats.

He’s been rapping since he was 15, working with quality people Mark Ronson, Example, Charlie Sloth throughout the early noughties. But Doc Brown’s music career became emblematic of the ever-nascent British hip-hop scene of the period: talked about an awful lot, but with scrappy tangible success. So he kept his job as a youth worker, ran a charity for refugee kids, got married, had two daughters and sold his CDs at open-mic nights. Being a comedian and a rapper/MC is a dangerous combination, which makes Doc Brown a clever creator with lyrics and music. Even with 8,000 monthly listeners on Spotify, and nearly 500,000 streams. Doc Brown will still make appearances with TV shows and comedy gigs.