Jme likes to boast that he can make a beat with anything: Logic, Fruity Loops, Sony Playstation, a Nokia phone, even Mario Paint. But after a decade of grinding—selling records, T-shirts, and mobile phone service—the 34-year-old producer and MC can afford better gear. And though his fourth LP proves he’s upgraded his equipment since his school days, Grime MC stays faithful to the history of London’s grime scene.

Grime MCs might rap, but heads will be quick to tell you that grime is separate from hip-hop. The genre traces its roots to the UK garage scene, where parties are focused on the floor, not the stage. Jme has been there almost since the beginning—the first Boy Better Know mixtape dropped just a few years after Wiley’s genre-founding “Eskimo” riddim. And the sounds of Grime MC, particularly the beats Jme made himself (“96 of My Life,” “Badman Walking Through,” “Brothers & Sisters”), are in the same vein as those early tracks: Booming bass, vintage drum machines, and sinister synths. While Stormzy and Boy Better Know co-founder Skepta (who’s also Jme’s older brother) flirt with more commercial sounds that have raised the scene’s profile, Jme has remained steadfast. With rowdy beats and BPMs that hover above 140, Grime MC is made for the dancefloor and steeped in the slang and Caribbean patois that permeates London’s underground.

Yet for a classicist, Jme appears to defy stereotype. He’s an OG who roots for the kids making UK drill, a vegan teetotaling street rapper, and video game obsessive who produces beats live on Twitch. He’s internet-savvy, but if you want to hear his new record, it’s only available for purchase only on CD or vinyl—no downloads, no streaming platforms. This oppositional stance to current industry norms doesn’t reflect an unwillingness to adapt to modern technology. Rather, Jme understands the flattening effect of DSPs, where Adele lives next to Stormzy who shares playlists with Beyoncé. Grime has always been a subculture, rooted in meatspace. By forcing fans to buy the record direct or from local shops, he puts the onus on the listener to seek him out. And it seems to have worked: Grime MC debuted at No. 26 on the UK Top 40 Albums chart. Weeks after its release, it’s sold out pretty much everywhere.

Opting out of the largest and fastest-growing part of the music industry certainly limits Grime MC’s potential ceiling, which is as good an indication of Jme’s goals as anything else. Having watched fellow MCs fall victim to aspirational greed, he rejects the emptiness of excess with the understanding that you can’t take it with you. “When I pass, I’m leaving a lot/Even my own skin has to stay and rot,” he raps on “How Much.” These aren’t the words of a man upset that a lesser talent has climbed higher, but of a man who’s counted his blessings.

And why shouldn’t he? At 34, Jme has made the strongest record of his career, chock full of nimble, intricate raps that seamlessly integrate the nerdiest of signifiers. At times, Grime MC feels like a retrospective, a singular statement representative of cumulative efforts. He features some of the biggest names in grime—Skepta, Giggs, and Wiley, to name a few—but outshines them all. His clear diction makes him accessible without watering down his idiosyncrasies, flexing his nerd cred via video game-raps and Star Wars references (“Man are out here gunning for my spot but with the accuracy of a Stormtrooper”). And he’s extremely funny, whether popping off one-liners (“Can’t see me like Japanese porn”) or setting up punchlines about the penises in Michaelangelo’s artwork.

In a genre often mired in cliché and gangster tropes, Jme shines as a rapper’s rapper. He’s long experimented with different lyrical styles, but has never quite achieved the level of execution he reaches on Grime MC. He crafts compelling stories, like the no-hook diary entry “96 of My Life”; he toys with clever forms of repetition on “Iss Mad” and “Knock Your Block Off”; and on “You Know,” he fires off a jaw-dropping quatrain imagining himself as a PC’s video card. As UK drill surges in popularity, some may see grime as an old man’s game. But if Grime MC is any indication, the genre—and Jme himself—has yet to reach its creative peak.