The powerful and impassioned voice at the start of the video celebrating the 2021 re-birth of Aston Martin’s Formula 1 team was well-chosen. It belongs to 23-year old, multi-award-winning British rapper, singer, songwriter, producer, actor (and car fan), David Orobosa Omoregie, better known as Dave or Santan Dave. Born in south London to Nigerian parents – his dad was a pastor, his mum a nurse – he grew up in Streatham but his father was deported back to Nigeria when he was only a few months old and he was raised along with his two older brothers by his mother. She encouraged his music by buying him a piano at 14 years old and by 2015, he was getting noticed via internet television and You Tube channel appearances. His style has since developed into an highly-articulate combination of conscious, personal, honest and gritty lyrics, set to cleanly-produced, usually slow-tempo and often piano-heavy, melodic music.

In 2017 he won Best Newcomer at the Music of Black Origin (MOBO) Awards but it was after the release of his single “Question Time” from his second EP “Game Over” that the wider industry took real notice. The searing polemic – which discusses Middle Eastern geopolitics, NHS healthcare underfunding and the London Grenfell Tower fire tragedy in seven superb minutes of music – won Best Contemporary Song at the highly-respected Ivor Novello Awards in 2018. Dave followed this critical success with his first full LP “Psychodrama” in early 2019. A deeply-personal insight into his life and world view it was also influenced by the very different trajectories of his two brothers, both of whom have seen prison time and one is serving a life sentence for murder. With an introduction by a psychologist and interspersed with his musings among the 11 carefully-structured tracks, the LP won the 2019 Mercury Music Prize and 2020 Brit Awards Album of the Year while becoming a certified ‘platinum’ sales success. His latest LP “We’re All Alone in This Together” launched in July 2021 and the video for the first single taken from it – “Clash” featuring fellow south London rapper Stormzy – was shot at Aston Martin’s Gaydon HQ. The action features both British rappers enjoying the V12 Speedster and judging from his lyrics, Dave’s been into cars for a long time, often name-checking specific makes and models in unusual ways. Now the proud owner of an Aston Martin DBX, Dave can add great automotive taste to his immense talent too.