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journalism → support → readers
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we → purchase → commission
You really know you’ve made it when you barely blink at booking a helicopter to steal Stormzy from a wedding.
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you → know → wedding
“It wasn’t his wedding, he was best man,” says Will “Status” Kennard, recalling the night in 2024 when Chase & Status ’coptered in grime’s finest to guest at their enormous Milton Keynes takeover show.
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Chase → say → show
“It ruined someone else’s wedding, basically.
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It → ruin → wedding
A chopper landed on the lawn, he jumped in it in his tuxedo, flew to Milton Keynes, landed next to the stage, runs on the stage, and he was just standing there at the front of this catwalk to 100,000 people.
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he → land → people
It was one of the greatest reactions I’ve ever seen from any live show we’ve ever done.”
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we → see → show
He shakes his head.
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He → shake → head
“Which is saying something.”
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Which → say → something
In the helicopter en route, Stormzy learned that Backbone, the dark, warp-heavy track he’d rapped on — and then pretty much forgotten about — for London’s biggest drum ’n’ bass duo, had just that day become C&S’s first ever No 1.
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he → learn → duo
He didn’t stay for backslaps though, having toasts to raise elsewhere.
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He → stay → toasts
“He went back,” laughs Saul “Chase” Milton.
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Milton → go → ?
But we really wanted that to happen.
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that → want → ?
Before he even agreed to it, we were like ‘the chopper’s sorted’.”
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chopper → agree → it
The success of Backbone capped a phenomenal chart resurgence for these grandmasters of grand-scale rave.
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success → cap → rave
2022’s sixth album What Came Before hit the Top Five and launched a flurry of hits: Disconnect with Becky Hill, Baddadan, Liquor & Cigarettes and the Stefflon Don collab Selecta.
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What → come → Hill
Since they first broke big with 2009’s End Credits and went multi-platinum with their second album No More Idols in 2011, the duo have never been more popular, and it all culminated in a pair of celebratory blow-outs as headliners of Reading & Leeds 2026, fire filling the sky and the Reading stage rammed with star guests from many disparate threads of dance, rap and pop.
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stage → break → dance
‘It’s this mish-mash of scenes and genres and artists who would never normally work together’
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who → ’ → scenes
“There’s something so special about the family feeling of the show, which we built up over years and years,” Kennard says.
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Kennard → ’ → years
“There’s such a big group of people that come around and tour with us now, and they get on really well.
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they → ’ → us
It was so lovely seeing Tom Grennan hanging out with Irah and Trigga and Flowdan.
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Grennan → see → Irah
It’s this mish-mash of scenes and genres and artists who would never normally work together, all on the same stage.
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who → ’ → stage
It was, in a way, a bar-spitting personification of C&S’s long-standing mentality.
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It → spit → mentality
Born — as students in Manchester in the mid-2000s — from a mutual love of all strands of drum ’n’ bass and jungle music, Chase & Status have always been a unifying force.
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Chase → bear → bass
“From day one, we didn’t just want to make one style of drum ’n’ bass,” says Milton.
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Milton → want → drum
“Some people make the liquid style, you make the techy style, you make the dancehall style — we like it all, and so we tried to dip our foot in all of it.”
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we → make → it
Throughout their 23 years together they’ve refused to stand still, shifting album-by-album through darker territories, jungle revivals and pan-genre collaborations, until no one blinked at 2017’s Tribe record featuring Craig David, Emeli Sandé and Tom Grennan alongside rappers Kano and Bugzy Malone, and indie rockers Blossoms and Soft Play.
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one → refuse → Kano
“We also love garage,” Milton asserts.
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Milton → love → garage
“We love dubstep.
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We → love → dubstep
We love grime.
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We → love → grime
We love rock.
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We → love → rock
We love indie.
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We → love → indie
We love rap.
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We → love → rap
We’re musicphiles.
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We → ’re → ?
What I hope that we do is give these other genres the respect they deserve.”
A respect that hasn’t always been mutual.
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that → hope → respect
When C&S were booked to play Download festival in 2012, plans were laid to give them the welcome traditionally afforded to dance acts at rock festivals: the age-old Rain of Gold.
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plans → book → Gold
“There was a campaign to douse us in bottles and bottles of urine,” Milton remembers.
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Milton → be → urine
“I was like, ‘I can’t get covered in urine, this a new outfit’.
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this → cover → urine
My fiancée was there at the time, it’s going to be pretty embarrassing.”
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it → go → time
Come the event, they won the metalheads over.
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they → Come → metalheads
…and 41 more, not listed.
The Aporia
