Combining his delightful rambling musings on modern life with a handful of off-kilter, loopy electronic ditties 24-year-old Obaro Ejimiwe attracts instant comparisons to The Streets’ Mike Skinner, but much separates these two MCs.

Born and raised somewhere between London, Coventry, Nigeria and Dominica, Obaro admits that his heritage is important to him, but that it hasn’t consciously affected his musical career: “My parents enjoyed listening to music around the house but never really encouraged it as a career. I kind of pursued listening to various sounds late into the night when the house was asleep.” And as for attempting to pinpoint his tastes… it’s hard to gauge when his palette flips from Badly Drawn Boy’s The Hour Of The Bewilderbeast (the first CD he ever bought) to the angular dynamics of the UK grime scene via Iggy Pop, Fela Kuti, Radiohead, MF Doom and Squarepusher. This was the music that captured his imagination at university, where Obaro was part of a grime collective: “One of the guys made the beats with Reason, he taught me the basics and I kind of stumbled, bumbled and fumbled my way to the present.”

Signing to Giles Peterson’s Brownswood Recordings imprint, a free EP entitled The Sound Of Strangers sidled into the public domain in June 2010. Comprising four tracks; three original compositions blessed with playful prose and a remix of A Tribe Called Quest’s Electric Relaxation (Relax Yourself Girl) … and a feature from left-leaning pop mastermind Micachu, it hit a hungry online audience.

Less than a year later and showcasing Ghostpoet’s loveably ramshackle, but hook-laden productions and his lazy baritone, his debut album Peanut Butter Blues & Melancholy Jam is a neat summation of the MC’s musical journey to date, but also an impressive statement of intent. Appearances at Sonar, Glastonbury, Bestival and numerous other European festivals over the Northern summer illustrates his popularity with the masses as well as the critics.

“Rarely does a British debut album forge such a fully formed, genuinely unique direction that attempts to slot it into established scenes prove almost entirely fruitless… Peanut Butter Blues and Melancholy Jam throws its headgear into the ring as an early contender for 2011's finest out-of-leftfield long-players.” – Adam Kennedy, BBC Music.