What’s up Wrap Up readers! I hope you’ve missed me and my UK rap updates since the Christmas holidays – I’ve been away in Brazil so I’ve just started my working year today! It was my birthday on Friday (11) and I celebrated it at the Jazz Café in Camden, where they played 90’s hip-hop and r&b. I saw Emily Rawson and Big Ted take to the decks, and live performances from the brilliant Joel Culpepper and Rough Copy…

2013 is going to be a big year for UK rap – we have seen it progress and mature so much in 2012. This year got off to a fantastic start; Clement Marfo & The Frontline’s top 40 UK hit ‘Champion’ is going to be used for another sporting event, this time as the theme song for the World Wrestling Entertainment event ‘Royal Rumble’ on January 27. In 2012 it was played during the BBC Olympics & Paralympics coverage, Wimbledon Tennis and more.

We saw DVS release the visuals to a track from his ‘1 In A Billion’ mixtape, ‘Go From Here’, where the south London rapper shares his thoughts on a special female. Speaking of, J Spades released the video to ‘What It Is’ featuring DVS, which is taken from his ‘More Money More Pagan’s’ mixtape.

In the lead up to his EP ‘Certified’, Sneakbo and singer L Marshall got together for ‘Me And Mine’ which shows his development as a rapper on this thought-provoking track. A week later he then released another video from the EP entitled ‘I Love Girls’… the title being pretty self-explanatory.

Political Peak also released a video to his deep track ‘Asking Why’ at the beginning of the year, which comes from his ‘Dreams 2 Reality’ mixtape and features Jaja Soze and signer Ruby Smith.

Black The Ripper has released two videos in the space of two weeks. The first week saw the video to ‘Home Sweet Home’ featuring Shystie taken from his ‘Black Is Beautiful 2’ mixtape. Last Monday he put out ‘Real Recognise Real’.

Mic Righteous’ ‘Open Mic’ EP is out next month, but he gave fans a preview of what to expect from it as he released a video. He hit BBC Radio 1’s Live Lounge and covered Gabrielle Aplin’s ‘The Power Of Love’ beautifully as part of 1Xtra’s Hot 10 for 2013.

Pakman and J Spades got together for a new track ‘Four Seasons’ which you can find on Pakman’s forthcoming mixtape ‘Legend’.

Ard Adz and Sho Shallow put in a lot of work last year. They kicked off this year by releasing the visuals to ‘Get Drowned’, an unconventional track that works off their ‘G.H.E.T.T.O’ EP.

USG’s Squingy, Lefty, K Koke, Exo and Don Jaga kicked off things by giving us a taster of a track ‘Stay Up’ which is set to be on their forthcoming album. Judging by just this one track, the album will be definitely one to look out for. K Koke also visited DJ MK and Shortee Blitz at the Kiss FM building to drop a heavy freestyle recently – be sure to check it out.

Haze released his ‘Loyalty, Honor, Respect’ mixtape in March and last week kicked off 2013 by heading over to Paris and dropping the video to ‘On My Own’.

Last but by no means least, rap fans can look forward to MTV’s Best of the Best: UK MCs show this month, which airs on MTV Base on January 28 at 10pm. The show sees judges from Charlie Sloth to Naughty Boy and others take to a panel to discuss who deserves of the title of the Best MC of 2012. In 2011, Wretch 32 won – who do you think deserves the title this time?