Rap/punk rising star Hyphen today returns with new music in the form of ferocious single, Said What I Said. The track is led by Hyphen’s signature meticulous rap flow, and perfectly complemented by the urgent riff which runs throughout. The song’s title is turned into a hooky chant during the chorus, and has already been going down a storm live; it ended up being the standout moment during Hyphen’s headline sets in May. The chorus also features a very subtle sitar, a nod to Hyphen’s South-Asian folk music influences, and to his roots which he is extremely proud of. Despite the message of Said What I Said being an explicitly political message about right wing parties, Hyphen has managed to create a song made for both a mass sing-along and a raucous mosh pit; something that makes him so unique and impossible to ignore. Listen to Said What I Said here.
Hyphen articulates, “Reform UK, potentially the next British Government, is made up of openly racist, sexist people who say they want to privatise the NHS and want to copy some of scariest, most evil policies from the US. They are funded by offshore billionaires and have taken bribes from the Russian government. Billionaire funded media is afraid to call them facists. We should not be. The left slept walked into Brexit because we didn’t fully acknowledge the threat we were up against. We can’t make that mistake again. Said What I Said is a song about refusing to be gaslit by mainstream media about the threat that the far right really pose. It’s also just a fucking banger. The far right are fascists and would ruin this country to serve their wealthy donors. I said what I said.”
Hyphen also today announces that he will join punk duo, Kid Kapichi on their UK headline tour in November! They will kick things off at Bristol’s Electric on 12th November, and make their way around cities including Falmouth, Southampton, Norwich, Glasgow, Nottingham and Manchester, before wrapping things up at London’s Outernet, on 20th November. Tickets are on sale now here. Before this, Hyphen is playing a slew of festivals this Summer, including 2000 Trees, Kendall Calling, Boomtown, and more. April and May saw the London-born artist play his biggest ever UK headline tour which was also sold out, including a date at London’s Scala. He was joined by Native James, Mudrat and Gen and the Degenerates as support. The political punk has also previously played festivals including Great Escape, Reading & Leeds and Lattitude.
New single Said What I Said follows track HYDRA, which Hyphen released earlier this year. 2025 saw him release his EP, This Might Be It. To celebrate the release, he went out on his first ever UK headline tour which ended up being completely sold out. This is no mean feat for a completely independent artist! Hyphen also went on to make his debut appearance at 2000 Trees that July, and ended up landing on several international news channels thanks to his standout performance.
The London-based artist blends rap, punk and hip-hop, and is an absolute force of nature live. Hyphen is all about creating a safe space and a community for like-minded people, and spends the majority of his live sets in the crowd uniting everyone. His songs span pretty serious themes and topics including his own battles with mental health and racism, plus politics and immigration, but ultimately are quite tongue-in-cheek and are delivered with a sense of mischief. The biggest South Asian rock artist in the UK, a former Spotify RADAR artist, BBC Introducing Future Sounds artist, awarded the PRS Momentum fund (previous winners include Sam Fender and Little Simz), co-signs from the likes of Hollywood star Jennifer Coolidge and activist and wealth inequality campaigner Gary Stevenson, and has millions upon millions of streams, Hyphen is only just getting started.
Photo credit: Noah Stars Kennedy