To describe him shortly, Official TS is that one rapper who could talk about two different topics — in this case, Satan and Islam — and no one seems to bat an eye. Of course, there’s the numerous controversies surrounding him (detailed below) and the people that are confused by why he would do such a thing, but besides this, he seems to be a rapper and not much else.
It seems that that has changed now.
Earlier this month, news began spreading that TS was arrested (and it seems to be confirmed to some extent by TS, who said he’d be “soon home” in the introduction to his new song, “BGB”, now deleted from his channel due to copyright issues). Further evidence to this includes YouTuber Packetson saying in a YouTube video regarding his arrest that his friends have allegedly started to say something along the lines of “free TS” on Snapchat.
However, in the case of people covering his arrest, not much information is given regarding his musical career. This article aims to solve that problem.
Early on in Official TS’s career, he would go under the name KrudzOrTS; “TS” is short for “TinySkattz”, which is, in turn, a reference to SkattzLoose/Skattz. Not much can be given about Skattz besides him allegedly claiming #143 until the beginning of 2019; if this is case, that means he would’ve appeared in one prior song, that being a block cipher posted on YouTube in January 2019 alongside LV and Fundz.
His first song, “Facts”, was released alongside Skattz in May 2019 on SoundCloud. From here, it is hard to determine an accurate map of his musical career; while the songs he released are known, we cannot know for sure when they were released. These songs include “The Truth”, “KG’s Coffin” (both released on Spotify in March 2020, with the latter being a remix of Sin Squad’s “Kelvin’s Coffin”), “Mr Purge Him” (released sometime in 2020), “Satan” alongside Young Psycho (also released sometime in 2020) and “Anyone Can Go”. It should be worth mentioning that the last three have no official release on KrudzOrTS’s Spotify account, and thus it is not possible to find an exact date as to when they were released.
Another story — separate of his musical career — is the “gangs” that KrudzOrTS repped. Among these include CSDB (mentioned in “The Truth”), ParkSide (mentioned in “Anyone Can Go” and “Satan”), and ACGI, which appears to be based off of the 6th/ACG gang in Beckton (while no mention can be found, there is an unreleased song of him with Sinz called “Tapped”; his Instagram account appears to have been deleted).
Of all these alleged gangs, ParkSide appears to be the most notorious as a result of “Anyone Can Go”, where he disses several alleged opps that have been “killed”. The UK drill community, however, appears to have not bought into this (with people mainly saying that he isn’t OJ — meaning “on job”, referring to someone that has street credibility — and that he made up names on his tracks).
Sometime following this “era”, KrudzOrTS would change his name to Official TS, releasing his first song under the name, “Bipolar”, on 19 June 2020; this would be followed by “Bipolar 2.0” on 23 July. Two more songs would follow — “Graveyard” and “Akhirah” — before he would release his most successsful song, “Satan 2.0”, on 3 December. As of writing, the song has 3.3 million streams on Spotify and 1.7 million views on YouTube.
9 songs would follow in 2021 in 2022; of them, 7 were released in 2021. Among them are “Anyone Can Go”, “Let There Be Carnage”, “Satan the 3rd”, “Believer” and “Bengali Boss”.
We now turn to the other side of this story: Al-Arafat Hassan.
According to the BBC and the Evening Standard, on 3 March 2022, Hassan, of Enfield, was arrested by counter-terrorism officers under the Metropolitan Police during a “proactive operation”. He was also arrested alongside a 15-year old from Leeds; both of them were charged with preparation of terrorist acts.
Between 12 January and 27 February, Hassan allegedly prepared terrorist acts by buying knifes and chemicals and by conducting online research to try to find components to an explosive device. According to Ham&High, he also downloaded an extremist video — intending to emulate its teachings — and participated in online conversations involving extremist views. The younger teenager conducted the same research as Hassan and purchased knives between 9 January and 20 March.
On 9 March, Hassan appeared at a hearing at Westminister Magistrates’ Court; there, it was ordered by the chief magistrate that he was to appear at the Old Bailey on 25 March. There, he and the teenager were charged with one count of preparation of terrorist acts.
It should now be worth it to turn our attention back to TS for a moment. Beginning in late May 2021, he would begin to post ISIS-related content on his Snapchat, including a photo from a VICE News video — which appears to be from a documentary about the Islamic State published in 2016 — that quotes a child as saying “they don’t know we [the Islamic State] are the best people in the planet.” Although he would deny being a part of ISIS the day after, he would post more content regarding ISIS 3 days after the original; afterwards, he wouldn’t post anything regarding the group.
Moving on to 2022, it should be worth looking at the lyrics to “Habibti” — released on 29 January — where TS says, “I’m the most-feared member from ISIS” (with ISIS censored out, presumably to not be arrested and indicted on some terrorism charge); he would also refer to himself dying as a shaheed, which is Arabic for “martyr”, and as a “jihadi soldier for Allah”. The first reference to “Habibti” was on 10 January via his Instagram, 2 days prior to Hassan beginning to prepare terrorist acts.
Could this mean for sure that Official TS is Al-Arfat Hassan? No; perhaps these could all be a series of coincidences. (Update: Official TS has been confirmed to be Al-Arfat Hassan; according to a Sky News article, “Hassan, who used the stage name TS, gathered hundreds of thousands of fans on YouTube, Spotify and the radio station Kiss FM.”)
I shall now take this time to call out tabloid newspapers that report on Official TS allegedly being arrested. For the purposes of this outro, I shall name an article from The Ancestory, which appears to be the most popular article on his arrest, according to my observations.
While looking through this article, I can name several errors made: one, TS is not “a well-known British vocalist” but a rapper (plus, he isn’t that well-known in terms of mainstream rappers such as Central Cee or Digga D); two, it states that Hassan al-Arafat’s arrest is “racial discrimination” (such a claim should not be made until the facts of this case are made clear); three, as a Wikipedia editor myself, there is no way to hell and back TS is going to get a Wikipedia article solely because of his “passion and recognition in the music industry”; four, him beginning his musical career by making beats “as a child” cannot be verified in any way; and five, I cannot find any news outlets that are “scrambling” to find his real name or age.
Of importance here is the final claim that “Official TS’s net worth is in the millions” due to his extravagant lifestyle; according to a 2019 report from the London Borough of Tower Hamlets regarding household income, the average income in the borough was £30,760 ($40,413 as of writing; 15th out of 32 boroughs) and £27,726 ($36,426) in Bethnal Green. I thus ask the following question: how can TS be worth in the millions while, according to the same report, 85% of households had an income of less than £60,000?
In short, don’t turn to tabloid newspapers when your favorite rapper gets arrested and don’t jump to conclusions.
Update (4/5 June): A portion of a prison freestyle from TS was released through an exclusive channel on 1 June, seemingly confirming that TS has been arrested for something. However, the audio appears to be from a 2021 video of a preview from TS and Sinz named “War” — thus, this cannot be used as evidence he is in prison.
