I love Ed Sheeran, both for his obvious enjoyment of Hip Hop and also for his general music. A lot of time when pop artists do music with Hip Hop artists it feels very much like they are just trying to extend their appeal and get more radio play/streams. With Ed I think his honest enjoyment of Hip Hop is obvious. Partly because he has released his own, solo, borderline Hip Hop tracks (You Need Me, Eraser). But also because he has does collabs with rappers and grime artists on tracks which do not seem to really be going for radio play (Eminem - Those Kinda Nights, Radio feat JME)

Anybody who likes Ed Sheeran and Hip Hop should really check out No.5 Collaborations Project. It is an EP he released in 2011, prior to signing to his label and his first album release. It features grime artists such as Wiley, P Money, JME and Ghetts. It really is worth the listen.

Also, Macklemore gets called corny a lot (and he kinda is), but dude can rap his ass off and has a bunch of less pop stuff from before he blew up. Hell, even The Heist, the album which blew him up and got him his current reputation due to Thrift Ship, had some good-ass rap on it, including Jimmy Iovine feat Ab-Soul as a personal favorite of mine. I really recommend The Language of My World for anybody who hasn’t heard it. It is 20 tracks and Macklemore really goes off on some of these tracks. Specifically B-Boy goes hard as hell.