Sway DaSafo, the British rapper who beat 50 Cent to a MOBO, has died at 44

Sway DaSafo has died at 44 at his home in Ghana. The MOBO Awards announced the death on Thursday 17 September, and his friend Kash Ahmad confirmed it to the BBC. No cause has been given. The BBC reported that he was diagnosed with Hodgkin lymphoma in 2010 and went into remission later the same year.

He was born Derek Andrews Safo on 5 September 1982 in Hornsey, north London, to Ghanaian parents. He started rapping as a hobby at ten and was making beats on his computer by thirteen, and the career that followed was built almost entirely outside the structures that usually decide who gets heard.

The moment that fixed him in British music history came in 2005. He won Best Hip-Hop Act at the MOBO Awards as an unsigned artist with no album out, beating 50 Cent and The Game, on the strength of two mixtapes called This Is My Promo. Nobody unsigned had done it before.

"At a time when British rappers were still fighting to be recognised alongside their US counterparts, his win made a real statement," MOBO said in its tribute, calling it a moment for UK rap rather than only for him, and adding that the organisation would always be proud he was part of its history.

He had talked about why the mixtapes worked in a Guardian interview that same year, describing them as a diary of his life, full of skits and radio appearances, and saying that people who follow a story start to feel close to the person telling it. He had started out in the groups Phynix Crew and One before going solo.

This Is My Demo, his debut album, arrived in 2006 on his own Dcypha Productions and picked up a Mercury Prize nomination. Up Your Speed, featuring Pyrelli, had been an early hit the year before, and Little Derek, written about the obstacles in front of a British rapper, reached number 30 on the UK singles chart. He later partnered with Akon's Konvict Music, and Akon appeared on The Signature LP in 2008. Still Speedin' was a UK top 20 single in 2011 and Level Up reached number 8 in 2012.

The part of his career that other people keep bringing up is the part that was about other people. He discovered and worked with an unsigned Ed Sheeran early on, and mentored Mr Hudson, Tiggs Da Author, Riz Ahmed, Tinchy Stryder and KSI through Dcypha. "You believed in me when many didn't. You gave me a chance when many didn't," KSI wrote, saying Sway saw potential in him when other people treated his music as a joke.

He collaborated widely, with Kano, Riz Ahmed, Akon, Lupe Fiasco, Chamillionaire and Sheeran among others, and acted as well, appearing in the 2011 premiere of Top Boy and the 2012 film The Grind. Remi Burgz of BBC Radio 1Xtra called him a UK rap pioneer and one of north London's finest, and said he was the first experience many listeners ever had of British hip-hop in mainstream media.

He is survived by his wife Helen and four children: his sons Jalil and Ammar-Joseph, and his twin daughters Queen-Inaya and Queen-Imara.