"They had faces of horror"

Stormzy has revealed how the shocking reality of being stabbed didn’t sink in until he left south London for a community project.

The grime icon, 25, told the Sunday Times how he grew up in Thornton Heath, south London, an area which has previously been plagued by gang violence.

But it was only he went to the Midlands on a project management course during his time at an oil refinery that he realised how serious the attack on him actually was.

“It was in Tipton. We’d gone there to do the work of the people we were to manage, like welders and in the room were 17 white kids”, he explained. “One day we had our hard hats off. I had a scar on my head and someone goes ‘what happened?’, I said ‘Oh, I got stabbed’.

“I will never forget. I was explaining ‘I got stabbed here, there, there….’ They had faces of horror – and that’s when it dawned on me. Where I come from is mad. Of course it’s shocking I’ve been stabbed. Of course it shouldn’t be normal.”

It comes after Stormzy last year mourned the loss of his close friend Bugz, who was fatally stabbed in Thornton Heath. Bjorn Brown, 23, was knifed by two men before he collapsed as he attempted to cycle away.

The same interview saw Stormzy reflecting on the once-in-a-lifetime experience of receiving piano tuition from Paul McCartney.

Later this week, he will release Rise Up: The #Merky Story So Far, his first autobiography.