Ghetts, a UK rapper known for tracks such as Mozambique and Skengman, has been charged with causing serious injury by dangerous driving after a deadly hit-and-run in London this month.
The 41-year-old artist, whose real name is Justin Clarke-Samuel, appeared in court on October 24 after allegedly failing to stop his car after hitting a 20-year-old pedestrian in Ilford on October 18.
Mr Clarke-Samuel was charged the same day as the victim died in hospital, with the charge expected to be changed to reflect this in the next hearing, reports claim.
The MOBO nominee and Supacell star has been remanded in custody and is expected to stand in front of Barkingside Magistrates' Court on October 27.
Ghetts has emerged as a prominent MC and also collaborates with UK icons such as Stormzy, Skepta and Ed Sheeran.
However, his musical career has been put on hold by the recent incident. Here’s everything you need to know about his life.
Who is Ghetts?
Born in East London in 1984, Justin reportedly grew up in a single-parent home in a part of London famed as the birthplace of grime.
Biographies reveal that he spent his youth witnessing dance battles, open mic events, and being exposed to a wide array of musical influences that shaped street life in East London at the time. But he also struggled in school, admitting in an interview that he didn’t do his SATs.
Ghetts first started dabbling in music in the early noughties, originally going by the name ‘Freedom’ before being given the alias ‘Ghetto’ by the late grime legend Stormin.
By 2005, the young grime star had released his first 24-track mixtape, 2000 & Life, which came to be highly regarded in the grime community and an essential part of the evolution of British music genres at the time.
It was also around this time that Ghetts fell in with the N.A.S.T.Y. Crew, an East London collective of grime artists founded by DJ Marcus Nasty and MCs Sharky Major. He later formed his own collective, The Movement, which included musicians like Wretch 32 and Devlin.
As grime emerged as its own genre, Ghetto became involved with pirate radio stations such as Deja vu, which helped spread his music to a growing cohort of grime fans.
In the years that followed, Justin continued to release mixtapes under the moniker Ghetto. Reflecting on his formative years in the grime industry, Ghetts admitted that he felt a lot of anger at the time. While he later processed these emotions, they were also infused in his earlier work.
"Back then, I just felt rage 24/7," he told the BBC. "Before Freedom of Speech, grime did not sound that way. The people cannot argue with that,” he also claimed about his influence on the genre.
He also had somewhat of a reputation for locking horns with other artists and for being seemingly unfraid to take them on, even though it sometimes caused tension.
"I always felt like the underdog, the underrated one, so I always felt like I had to do 10 times more than the other person,” he said in another interview about his experience as a grime artist in the noughties.
It was then, in 2010, that his fourth mixtape dropped under the new name, Ghetts. The artist has since released three studio albums and collaborated with a number of well-known UK stars, including Stormzy.
With a musical career spanning more than two decades, Ghetts firmly established himself as a pioneer of the grime community.
Ghetts’ music
Ghetts was named by The Guardian as a “founding father of grime” in 2024, and it’s the musical genre more associated with his music. But he’s also tied to the UK rap scene, and takes influences from R&B, garage and hip-hop.
He is known for the following mixtapes and albums: 2000 & Life, Ghetto Gospel, Freedom of Speech, Rebel with a Cause, The Calm Before the Storm, Ghetto Gospel: The New Testament, Conflict of Interest, On Purpose, with Purpose, Forbidden Frequencies.
Speaking to the Southbank Centre in 2024, Ghetts recalled that his musical inspirations included rappers Sharky Major and Namesbliss, as well as his former English teacher, Mr Henry, who made learning “fun.”
“I hate rappers that rap about rapping,” he also said during the interview, expressing the type of music he’s drawn to. “I’m always drawn to somebody who’s saying stuff that’s relatable.”
Ghetts has been nominated twice for the Mercury Prize, in 2021 and 2024. He also won the Best Male Act at the Mobo Awards in 2021.
Aside from being heavily involved with the British grime scene, he’s also dabbled in television and film; previously starring in Supacell (2024), Champion (2023) and The Intent 2: The Come Up (2018).
Ghetts’ personal life
Ghetts identifies as a Christian and has spoken openly about his faith in past interviews. In 2019, he also showed his support for Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn.
As for his relationship status, Ghetts has kept pretty tight-lipped about his private life.
However, in 2018, he said in an interview that he has a six-year-old daughter and even wrote a song about her. It means Ghetts’ daughter is probably around 13 years old now.
“My daughter’s aware of who I am and what I do, so I want her to be proud and not live a double standard,” he told Loud and Quiet magazine in 2018. “I need to be able to raise her in the correct way and also lead by example. It’s affected my music a lot. She listens to my music now, she’s six, she can sing along to everything. It’s very weird, but she is me.
“I wrote ‘Black Rose’ for my daughter,” he added.
In later interviews, he has also spoken about the influence he hopes to leave on the world.
“I hope to affect lives in a good way ... every opportunity I get, I pray that it spreads into opportunities for people around me. I pray that one blessing for me turns into many blessings for the people around me,” he said on the Battles & Blessings podcast earlier this year.
