Collaborations between artists have been a part of successful music-making from the start of time.

Often, musical artists tend to associate and collaborate with artists who create within a similar genre as them. Perhaps this understanding has resulted in some music-listeners becoming somewhat surprised when they first discovered that their favourite rapper has collaborated with singer, Ed Sheeran, whose main genres are pop and rock.

So, how is it that a singer from Halifax, West Yorkshire, managed to build an impressive repertoire amongst many UK rappers and musicians?

In an interview with Zeze Millz on Trend Centrl, Ed stated that when he was 15, he was a big fan of grime. He references influential mixtapes: Playtime Is Over by Wiley, Big Narstie - What's The Story Brixton Glory and other artists such as Boy Better Know therefore describing himself as "plugged in" to the London grime scene.

He takes us back to the beginning and credits the popular use of MySpace at the time to reach out to musicians. He recalls sending rapper, Chip, who was more commonly known then as Chipmunk, a message on the platform asking whether he would ever want to do a song together. He was met with a reply from DJ Scholar and Slix from Ruff Sqwad asking him to write some hooks on a few beats, one of which ended up on Slix's mixtape.

After moving to London, he began doing University events, where he would be the opening acts for musicians such as Gracious K, known for the hit - Migraine Skank. From there, he began meeting more people within the industry, which eventually led to being introduced to Jamal Edwards MBE, founder of UK rap and grime channel, SBTV.

He details how his SBTV debut emerged; after being invited by Jamal himself, the two took the train together to record, resulting in them being "best mates" from that moment forward.

When discussing recent collaborations, the singer discusses the backlash that comes from being white and collaborating with black artists. However, he notes he received a mostly positive response from his recent Tion Wayne, Central Cee and Fumez the Engineer song. He explains that he does not 'leech' from their fame as he always arranges a verse for verse type of arrangement, and overall, he genuinely loves the genre.