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‘Bad boy come again!’ The life, death and resurrection of jungle MC Stevie Hyper D

His ultra-fast rapping ruled 90s raves and influenced garage and grime, but he died young and fell into obscurity. The makers of a new documentary revisit his brilliance

A swaggering, gap-toothed, stentorian town crier for the scene at key raves like One Nation and Dreamscape, he was credited with accelerating the fastchat of Caribbean soundsystem MCs into exhilarating “double-time” rapping, which defined the sound of jungle and pointed the way towards garage and grime. He also coined or popularised many of the rudeboy battle cries doing the rounds at the time: “Bad boy come again!”; “Junglists, are you ready!” Then, after dying of a heart attack in 1998 aged 31 on the eve of releasing his first album, Stevie Hyper D fell into obscurity. On a video call from a Twickenham hotel a little tender the day after the film’s premiere, the 42-year-old remembers sneaking underage into a rave at Bagley’s in July 1998, unaware of Stevie’s death, and amped up at the prospect of witnessing the fast-spitting prodigy.

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