It will launch on February 1 in Croydon, on a 15,000 sq. ft retail site close to Asda and IKEA on Beddington Lane.

The supermarket will feature a halal meat and poultry counter, fresh and frozen exotic fish, a bakery, fruit and veg, tinned and ambient foods from around the world, and household essentials, including hair and beauty products. It will also sell foods from global brands like McCain and Heinz and has made a distribution deal with Martin’s potato rolls from the US.

Speaking to BBC London, Konan said “We like to get involved with businesses that solve problems and give back to the community.” The South London rappers say that Croydon, a diverse area with over 250,000 residents of black, Asian and mixed backgrounds, is under-served by smaller food shops that “often lack in product variety, hygiene standards, parking and fair pricing”.

Krept added that he “immediately” understood the space for a supermarket that could meet the needs of Croydon’s diverse population when their business partner and co-founder, Kaysor Ali pitched it to them.

He explained that “Having the experience of going shopping and having to go to multiple places – have to go to here for my meat, here for my fruit and veg and then for certain seasonings I have to go here – not everything is in the major supermarkets,”

“They just have one world food aisle, and it was like, ‘imagine that, but a whole supermarket.'”

It’s not the first business venture the industrious UK hip hoppers have launched. In 2018, the ‘Freak of the Week’ hitmakers teamed up with grime veteran J2K to open Crepes & Cones, a restaurant in Croydon that offered desserts, fast food, cold drinks and cocktails.

More recently, Krept and his former partner, model Sasha Ellese, have created Nala’s Baby, a skincare range for young children. Currently valued at £17 million, their brand has seen great success and garnered multiple industry awards, including the Mother Baby Gold Award for the Best Baby Skincare Range for two years in a row. It’s even had investments from figures such as Marcus Rashford, Jaden Sancho and Anthony Joshua.

In an interview with the Telegraph, Krept said “I’ve always wanted to branch out and not just do music. I’m really keen on different streams of income. I also want to create a life for my daughter that I wasn’t able to have. I don’t want her to go through the sort of things that we did as kids.”

Krept and Konan are currently gearing up to return on the UK music scene with their fourth studio album, ‘Young Kingz II’, described as a more mature version of their breakout mixtape ‘Young Kingz’. The album will be released on Feburary 7 through their independent label, Play Dirty.

The Croydon artists have dropped a few singles for their rollout, including a smooth drill track “Low Vibrations”, and two introspective tunes, “Nala’s Song” and “Delroy’s Son” – the first a tribute to Krept’s daughter, and the second to Konan’s father, Jamaican reggae singer Delroy Wilson.

The album is currently available for pre-save on the duo’s Spotify page here.

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Stormzy is always giving back to his community and this upcoming event will see the Croydon superstar host a Christmas party in his hometown. The event was announced by Croydons Fairfield halls where the event will be held, the venue posted the event poster alongside a caption that read, ”We are very excited #Merky Foundation and #Stormzy are throwing a Christmas event on December 3rd for the community of Croydon here at Fairfield Halls. To register you must be a Croydon Resident”.

The event will be Stormzy and the Merky foundations first-every Christmas party and will be free of charge but only available to residents of the croydon borough. There is a limit on tickets with only 4 being available per household.

Fairfields halls shared the event on their website and described the day as, “a chance for the Croydon community to enjoy a day out and have a chance to win some very special prizes. The party, founded by an abundance of generous donors, will include a plethora of activities including games, performances, tombola, workshops and more with Stormzy also being present to join in the fun”

Today is the last day to register for tickets, with the event having been split into 2 different time slots. The first slot will be for those aged 4 and over beginning at 4:30 until 6:30 and the second for those aged 10 and over between 7:00 and 9:30.

The Merky book’s team will be donating 500 copies of their first children’s book, Superheroes: Inspiring stories of secret strength, which is a collection of modern-day heroes created by the Merky founder Stormzy. The author and performance poet Sophia Thakur will be performing during the event and the illustrator Denzell Dankwah will run drop in drawing workshops for children throughout the day.

The Merky Christmas party is set to take place on the 3rd of December at Fairfield Hall, with tickets available to register for Croydon residents here.

Thousands of people attended the party in a former Royal Mail delivery office in East Croydon on Saturday night (14th June) at which it has been reported that 15-year-old Rio Andrew was taken to hospital in the early hours of Sunday and died on Monday.

The young man who is now down to 9 fingers, known so far only as Josh, told VICE that he lost half of his little finger after a fire alarm went off in the room playing house music. “The fire alarm starting going off and everyone was like, “Rip it off! Rip it off!” So I thought I’d give it a go,” he said. “I was completely sober at the time. I jumped up, grabbed it and my little finger got caught in the case because it was all broken, and as I came to rip it back down, my little finger got ripped off completely.”

A number of arrests were made in relation to the rave – nine during the event and a further five since it ended on Sunday. Of the 14 arrests, two men have been charged with violent disorder and drugs offences. Other arrests made include charges of possessions of class A drugs, money laundering, violent disorder and criminal damage.