Terminator

Artist

Terminator (real name Shabazz Baidoo) is a UK Grime MC and former professional footballer. After being on Arsenal’s books as a youngster, Baidoo rose to prominence at Queens Park Rangers after making his debut at just 16 years old in the 2004/2005 season. Over the following three seasons he struggled to hold down a place in the first team eventually joining Dagenham in 2008. In an interview with BBC Sport, he reflected that he had had “too much, too soon and that he had never wanted to focus solely on football.

At Queens Park Rangers

Around the time he joined Dagenham, Baidoo began to MC under the name Terminator. His SBTV F64 Freestyle drew great attention for unique flow and violent lyrics, such as;

“I don’t knife for fun but I’ll knife your mum, if she backs the war I’ll knife her lung”

The video has since accumulated over 900,000 views on YouTube, and soon after released “Spartan Gang” and “We Don’t Care” amongst other tracks.

Terminator is the self-titled ‘Darkside Pioneer’, the creator of a style of grime flow where the MC has a sluggish, violent sound and is less restricted by the instrumental – often one lyric will be extended over many bars. In an interview withSBTV he even suggested that there is a variant of the Darkside flow called ‘Darkstep’ – a combination of Darkside and Dubstep.

Terminator’s F64

Terminator released his first mixtape [Darkside Pioneer] in 2013, around the same time that he was beefing with Young Marv. His response to Young Marv led to the creation of many memes and vines, while Jme referenced one of his comments aimed at Young Marv in his verse on Still Sittin' Here (Remix);