British rapper Stormzy launches Merky Books publishing imprint

Stormzy was born Michael Omari in July 1993 in London. He rose to fame as a grime artist and rapper, and won ‘Best Grime Act’ at the 2014 and 2015 MOBO Awards. His debut album, Gang Signs & Prayer, was released in 2017 and was the first ever grime album to reach number one on the UK Albums Chart.

Ever the supporter of new artists and ambitious, young people, Stormzy has teamed up with Penguin Random House to create his own imprint #Merky Books. This will be added to his other projects: his record label, #Merky Records, and his own music festival in Ibiza, #Merky Festival.

Super proud to announce our new venture #Merky Books, a publishing imprint in collaboration with Penguin Random House @penguinukbooks We will be using this as a platform for young writers to become published authors, I know too many talented writers that don’t always have an outlet or a means to get their work seen and hopefully #Merky Books can now be a reference point for them to say “I can be an author” and for that to be a realistic and achievable goal. Reading and writing as a kid was integral to where I am today and I from the bottom of my heart can not wait to hear your stories, your poems, your novels, your sci-fis and then getting them out into the big wide world. Proper proud of this! We’ll be doing school competitions, taking entries and submissions and looking for writers as well but I’ll keep you posted! #Merky Books will also be offering a paid internship in 2019! The first book to be released under the imprint will be “Rise Up: The #Merky Journey So Far” out November 1st and available for pre order now (The link is in my bio!) 🙏🏿❤️

A post shared by Gang Signs & Prayer (@stormzyofficial) on Jul 5, 2018 at 8:21am PDT

Stormzy has insisted that new, young writing talent would be found through school competitions and a paid internship from 2019. The first book set to be released under the imprint is Stormzy’s Rise Up: The #Merky Journey So Far which is available for pre-order now.

“Featuring hundreds of never-before-seen photographs, annotated lyrics and contributions from those closest to him, Rise Up is Stormzy’s story, in his words, and the record of a journey unlike any other,” said Penguin Random House.