After receiving exposure on Rinse FM and SB:TV, he won a recording contract with Mercury Records, and made a number of guest appearances on other artists’ records, including Ed Sheeran’s Goodbye to You, Mz Bratt’s Speeding By and Cher Lloyd’s Dub on the Track.
He was also invited by Gary Barlow to appear on the 2011 Children In Need single, a cover of Massive Attack’s Teardrop that also featured Chipmunk, Wretch 32, Labrinth, Ms Dynamite and Rizzle Kicks.
Around the same time, he got into a war of words with the “king of grime”, Wiley, accusing him of selling out and being past his prime on diss tracks like Pop Artist and It’s Over. (Ellis also had a long-standing beef, external with his former collaborator P Money).
The musician was nominated for the BBC’s Sound of 2012 prize, and released his debut album, Voices In My Head, that year.
Despite the success of the single Overload, the album stalled outside the Top 100, amid a dispute with his record label.
After extricating himself from the contract, he put out a series of independent albums – as well as a seventh volume of Rotten Riddims – but gradually moved behind the scenes as a writer and producer.
Shortly before his death, he resurrected the Dot Rotten name for a new single, Psalms For Praize, external, that spoke about his dedication to his career.
“Made mistakes, now I treat my career like a second child,” he rapped. “And that’s an oath I stay committed to like a wedding vow.”
The song was co-credited to Who’s British? – which turned out to be another of Ellis’s many pseudonyms. He was also known as Three-Six, The Spirit, Big Dotti and Terror Child.