About KOJ

In an age of political unrest and cultural fragmentation, Liverpool's KOJ steps forward as a rare working-class voice who refuses to look away. Operating between grime, rap and punk — all rooted in revolutionary spirit and protest — he speaks plainly about social division and austerity. His work is built to activate people, not just entertain, making him as much an activist as an artist. His forthcoming project ‘PUNK PANTHER’ is his clearest, sharpest expression of this ethos yet.

KOJ's anti-norm attitude is grounded in a split education: one musical, one cultural. At home, his mum was a constant source of music, while his dad played in bands and schooled him on punks, mods, rockers and the anti-establishment ferocity of the Sex Pistols and Johnny Rotten. Grime arrived later, on his own terms — London grime was, as he puts it, “the first sound that made me feel truly seen.” Skepta, JME, Kano and Novelist shaped his sense of what was possible, and became not only a soundtrack but a survival kit.

A proud Liverpudlian, KOJ is quick to point out that while his sound was forged by London grime, his character was shaped by Liverpool. “It was the scouse in me that made me not care,” he says, “the rebelliousness and the willingness to go against the grain.” That tension — London in the headphones, Liverpool in the blood — is the driving force behind his work.

The why behind it stems from a deeper place. In his early twenties he moved through a period of doubt, feeling like other people's “number two”. The turning point was realising he's “number one” — and that there are millions of other “number ones” who've never been told they are. His mission now is to empower people who don't yet know their own weight and teach them to take up space. That extends into TRiBE, his collaborative Black British music showcase, which has sold out multiple events and earned a nod from The Face.

At the centre of it all is power. Knowing your own, refusing to let anyone strip it away, and exposing those in charge when they weaponise ignorance, racism and propaganda. KOJ sits in a clear lineage of radical thought and music — from Malcolm X and Marcus Garvey to Public Enemy, NWA and The Who — treating hip-hop as both weapon and warning, updated for the modern day.

His debut EP Villain With A Conscience earned editorial and tastemaker support from Clash, Wonderland, The Face, Apple Music and Amazon Music. Onstage, his sets at Boomtown, Latitude, Radio 1 Big Weekend, Reeperbahn and SXSW Austin land as collective experiences — moments of shared release and unity that drive deep fan loyalty.

‘PUNK PANTHER’ is the next step — a dual-EP split into two halves, drawing a line between the external and the internal. Part one reads the streets: disparity, racism, immigration policy, government overreach and systemic neglect. The second half turns inward, confronting doubt, anger, identity and responsibility. Both are wars; only the scale shifts.

Driving it all is the persona of the “Punk Panther” itself. The thought experiment was simple: “What if the British punks of the ‘80s teamed up with the Black Panthers of the ‘60s and walked into the 2020s?” The result is a world where grime's urgency, punk's rawness and flashes of funk and hip-hop collide — grainy, gritty, but still melodic and accessible.

Music has always been a way to sneak the truth into the room. ‘PUNK PANTHER’ kicks the door in instead — positioning KOJ as a Northern cultural leader in UK music: a voice you can't ignore, and the artist you discover when you finally admit “something's not quite right here.”