Creating Kano’s Hoodies All Summer album artwork

The grime artist’s powerful new album grapples with subjects ranging from knife crime to the Windrush scandal. In a CR exclusive, Kano, photographer Olivia Rose and Untold Studios Creative Director Phil Lee discuss bringing it to life

Kano’s name has become synonomous with grime music over the last two decades. Whether with his debut single P’s and Q’s, which made waves with its release in 2004 and is still guaranteed to get a party started, or his role as Sully in cult series Top Boy (which is getting a Netflix reboot this month courtesy of Drake), the grime artist is firmly engrained in Black British culture.

While Kano’s previous album – the Mercury Prize nominated Made in the Manor – largely focused on his own story, his new release Hoodies All Summer is firmly outward looking, and has been touted as a searing commentary on the social injustices unfolding both in front of him in his home city of London and around the world.