Credit: Spotify

Central Cee has been one of the UK’s biggest rappers for a while now, culminating with the release of his debut album, Can’t Rush Greatness, on January 24th. The rapper, born Oakley Neil Caesar-Su in Ladbroke Grove and raised in Shepherd’s Bush, has been rapping for over a decade but is finally seeing his work rate come off as a superstar.

Cee started making a name for himself in 2020 with his buzzing singles ‘Day in the Life’ and ‘Loading’. He went on to release his debut mixtape, Wild West, in 2021. The project also included the singles ‘Pinging (6 Figures)’, ‘6 for 6’, and ‘Commitment Issues’, with the latter song peaking at number nine in the UK Singles Chart.

Later that year, Cee found further success with ‘Obsessed with You’, which famously sampled PinkPantheress’ ‘Just for Me’ and reached number four. The song appeared on 2022’s 23 mixtape, debuting at number one on the UK Albums Chart, and included other singles such as ‘Retail Therapy’, ‘Cold Shoulder’ and ‘Khabib’.

In 2022, he landed two of his biggest singles in the form of ‘Doja’ and ‘Let Go’, which peaked at number two and number six, respectively. Both ‘Doja’ and his ‘LA Leakers Freestyle’ earned him attention in the US, as well as his ‘On the Radar Freestyle’ with Drake.

Cee earned his first number-one single in 2023 with ‘Sprinter’, a collaboration with Dave. The song topped the UK Singles Chart for 10 weeks, becoming the longest-running rap song to top the chart. It was one of four songs that appeared on Cee and Dave’s Split Decision EP.

After years of proclaiming his independence, Cee signed with Columbia Records in partnership with Sony Music UK in June 2023. However, before that, he did have a distribution deal with ADA Music, owned by Warner Music Group.

Can’t Rush Greatness is made up of 17 tracks with features from UK stars such as Dave and Skepta, while also seeing collaborations with Lil Baby, 21 Savage and Lil Durk. ‘BAND4BAND’ serves as the lead single from the album, which peaked at number three, while his collaboration with 21 is also a standout. The song, aptly titled ‘GBP’, plays on the fact that the Atlanta-raised 21 was born in London and was the butt of the internet’s jokes years ago.

Cee has come a long way in a short space of time, going from someone who just recorded tracks to considering himself a musician. “With the mixtapes, I was living in [the same] house I grew up in,” he told Dazed. “Now we’ve elevated, we’re actually musicians. There were times it was hard to say man’s a musician. I was just a guy that [went into the] studio [sometimes]. Now, I’m an artist.”

Despite all of the success that has come his way, he hasn’t quite been able to enjoy the fruits of his labour. “Obviously, there’s been success, but it’s been kind of traumatic because I’m not taking nothing in,” he said during a GQ interview. “I’m doing mad things. Let’s say there’s me and seven of the mandem. Some of them have never been on holiday. Now we’re all taking a flight every three days, every two days.”

He continued, “We’ve even been to three countries in one day. Not stopping to give thanks, we were just rolling, rolling, rolling. Not even taking in how mad this change has been.” Now that his debut album is out in the world, he might finally be able to enjoy some downtime after shaking up the music industry since 2020.