About this artist
Multi-genre singer, rapper, and guitarist Maverick Sabre was born Matthew Stafford in the London borough of Hackney. He moved to Ireland during his childhood but returned to England for the sake of pursuing music. A modest start came with compelling, everyman-type appearances on albums by Terawrizt and Nu-Centz (Sense the Terror, 2008) and Jermiside & Danny Diggs (Middle Classic, 2009). In 2010, he was prolific: more collaborations with Terawrizt and Nu-Centz, features on Professor Green’s “Jungle,” and Chase & Status’ “Fire in Your Eyes,” and The Travelling Man, the first Maverick Sabre mixtape. In March of the following year, having signed to Mercury, Stafford released his debut EP, The Lost Words, with its remorseful and sobering “Look What I’ve Done” — a fusion of hip-hop, R&B, reggae, and folk — issued as a single. Four months later, the single “Let Me Go” was released and reached the U.K. Top 20. His debut album Lonely Are the Brave was released in 2012 and reached number two in the U.K. charts. This is the first collection of songs penned by Stafford following many collaboration with other artists and displays his brutally honest and opinionated songwriting skills. After the success of his debut, Stafford began woirking on a follow-up almost immediately, although his sophomore effort, Innerstanding, didn’t arrive until 2015; the record leaned further into pop territory, yet retained a diverse set of guests, including Joey Bada$$ and Gorgon City. In among touring Innerstanding and some well-deserved downtime, Stafford appeared on Jorja Smith’s 2016 album, Project 11. Shortly afterwards, he returned to the studio to write his third full-length. When I Wake Up saw release in 2019, and focused on societal issues mixed in with more personal stories. 2020 saw Stafford collaborating with a selection of artists including Shy FX, DJ Zinc, Jorja Smith, and Ocean Wisdom, before starting work on his own fourth studio album. Written and recorded throughout 2021, the resulting Don't Forget to Look Up, which saw him dealing with the intimacies of relationships, was issued in early 2022. ~ Andy Kellman