‘Slopaganda.’ #
by Harriet Williamson & Simon Childs
21 August 2026
The identities of two men behind an AI-generated far-right rapper who sings about how immigration has broken Britain can be revealed for the first time.
Danny Bones is a sharp-cheekboned skinhead whose music videos show him rapping about the decline of Britain, speeding a deportation van through London and fighting a civil war against the “Islamist Front”.
Since we first wrote about him, Danny Bones has appeared at an event organised by Stephen Yaxley-Lennon – AKA Tommy Robinson. At his Unite the Kingdom rally in May, Robinson told the crowd that a “war of propaganda” is taking place, before the video for the Danny Bones song ‘This Is England’ was played.
But while Danny Bones’ video was projected onto screens outside parliament, he is entirely fictional.
The AI character and the hyperreal universe he inhabits were created by the Node Project, a shadowy creative agency which shares and monetises Danny Bones content. The identity of the individuals behind the Node Project has never been revealed – until now.
A new investigation by the Bureau for Investigative Journalism (TBIJ) in collaboration with Novara Media has identified a series of links between music producer Denver Bamber and the Node Project. Theo Blackledge, a 3D artist and animator from Liverpool, is another founder of the previously anonymous collective.
Bamber is an established music producer and director of a company. He has built his career off working with predominantly black British grime and rap artists. Expense returns for defunct far-right party Advance UK’s Gorton and Denton byelection candidate, Nick Buckley, show the party paid Bamber’s company to produce videos. A previous version of the Node Project’s online shop privacy policy contained the same address as Bamber’s company.
Bamber confirmed that he and Blackledge founded the Node Project and created Danny Bones.
Blackledge separately confirmed his role with the Node Project, although he is not known to be affiliated with Bamber’s company. Bamber said Blackledge is still involved in the project. “Theo and I founded it and are the co-creative directors, working collaboratively across the project with the wider team,” he said.
Asked about their identities and connection to the project, Bamber said that he and the Blackledge “are the founders of the project and the creators behind Danny Bones. We’ve never hidden behind Danny because we’re worried about backlash or because we think we’re doing anything wrong. It’s because this is an art project and Danny is the face of it.”
Bamber described the pair as “two working-class lads exploring ideas that a lot of British people feel and relate to”.
Building the brand.
Bamber is a music producer, audio engineer and songwriter from Greater Manchester who has worked with some of the biggest names in British hip-hop, grime and drill, including chart-topping Manchester rapper Aitch. He boasts industry credits including Warner Music, UMG, NQ Records, Plug Records and GRM Daily. His songs were streamed 120 million times in 2025.
He predominantly works with black British artists including Manchester rapper Kenzo Str8Drop, Liverpool’s Kasst8 and drill artist Tee Zandos from east London. Some of these artists rap explicitly about racism, police harassment and deprivation.
Blackledge has also worked in the UK rap and grime scene. His 3D animation social media accounts have hundreds of thousands of followers. He has previously edited music videos for grime artists including Aystar and Manga Saint Hilare. His recent content includes stylised animations of real musicians and characters from films and video games. In 2019 Bamber and Blackledge worked together on a music video for rapper Gully Pactzz (now Gul Payne).
Bamber also gives artists the chance to learn from him. A promotional video on Bamber’s TikTok account advertises brand development services for “serious artists only”. For £500, as well as recording music, he helps artists with “branding and identity consultation”.
Bamber appears to have applied these skills to the creation of Danny Bones, whose slick videos convey clear branding and a consistent identity: an angry young man railing against the decline of the UK, which he blames on immigration.
Since first appearing in late 2025, Danny Bones has built an audience for his far-right political message, with more than half a million Spotify streams and 4.5 million YouTube views.
In June, Danny Bones released his album ‘Slopaganda’, an ironic reference to the term ‘AI slop’ used to describe poor quality AI-generated content. Songs from the album are explicit in their anti-immigrant sentiment. The track ‘YOOKAY’ sees Bones sing “we hand out our benefits to migrants who don’t benefit these islands” while in the music video, a crowd of St George’s flag-flying skinheads and balaclava-wearing men invade a trashed House of Commons and set off flares.
A disclaimer on the video states the film “does not depict real events or constitute any call to action”, adding: “This film does not endorse, encourage or incite violence, criminal damage, public disorder or any unlawful act.”
Asked if he saw any tension between his professional role and work with the Node Project, Bamber said: “My background in music production and my work with rap, grime and drill artists naturally influence the sound and creative language of the Node Project. These are musical genres, not political memberships with a required set of beliefs.
“There is no contradiction between working in those genres and creating art about free speech, freedom of expression, identity and anti-establishment ideas.”
Another recent Bones song, ‘Eyes Wide Open’, is similarly overt in its meaning. The AI-generated video shows a choice between two doors: one, plastered with the pride and trans flags, the Palestinian flag and flyers that read “equality now” and “climate justice”, leads to grim, burned-out tower blocks with Arabic-language signs. A second, festooned with union jacks, a cross, a poppy and a war medal, opens into a bucolic English village utopia where white people sit outside a country pub.
Reflecting current far-right and conspiratorial talking points, on ‘Traitors’ Danny Bones says: “Know what I’m wearing with pride, I’m far right of all this bullshit … An Asian nation will rise if we don’t find Christ.” On ‘Pray’, Bones asks whether the world is “ran by Jews or master masons”.
Questioned on these lyrics, Bamber said: “The line ‘I’m far right of all this bullshit’ rejects tribal political labels and division. It is not a declaration that I am far right. The line about an Asian nation rising is provocative political commentary about demographic and religious change in Britain.” He said the line and Jews and master masons is “explicitly framed as a question”.
“The lyrics are deliberately provocative political art,” he said. “They should not be misrepresented as evidence that the Node Project is a political party vehicle or covert campaign operation.”
‘What is it they don’t like?’
By January 2026 the Danny Bones character was already being deployed as a political propagandist. Earlier this year, Novara Media and TBIJ revealed that the Node Project was paid to create content for the far-right nationalist splinter party Advance UK, including a campaign video, as it contested the Gorton and Denton byelection. Experts told Novara Media and TBIJ that it may have been the first time a UK party had paid to use AI to influence a byelection.
An expense declaration by Advance UK candidate Nick Buckley, seen by Novara Media and TBIJ, shows that Bamber’s company was paid £4,000 for “videos” during the byelection campaign. Former Advance UK leader Ben Habib previously confirmed that Advance had commissioned the work.
Asked about this, Bamber said the payment was for “separate creative work” which “had no Node Project branding, no Danny Bones, nothing connected to the Node Project and was not commissioned by the Node Project. The payment did not fund, own or control the Node Project. A separate payment for creative work does not turn the Node Project into a political campaign operation.”
Advance UK was officially deregistered in July as its leader, Habib – a former Reform co-deputy leader who fell out with Nigel Farage – joined forces with Rupert Lowe and Restore Britain.
Since then, the Node Project has found other ways to monetise Danny Bones. On its online shop, for £35 customers can buy Danny Bones T-shirts featuring Christian iconography, or depicting Bones in a police mugshot-style photograph, echoing the video for ‘Shut Up’, in which he is arrested after rampaging around London with an assault rifle.
The Danny Bones merchandise is modelled by both Bones and another AI character, the purple-haired “cute goth girl” Amelia, who was initially created for a Home Office-funded anti-radicalisation video game, but swiftly co-opted by the online far right. Amelia stars in a number of the Bones videos, including as his love interest, in an apparent attempt to expand the fictional universe surrounding Bones.
The Node Project has also made over £2,000 from Buy Me a Coffee – a website which allows creators to sell memberships and collect donations. By 9 August, the collective had 143 supporters.
The project’s income streams and content platforms may now be drying up, however.
On 5 August, the Node Project posted on X, saying: “Last night, Instagram deleted both our accounts within minutes. Nearly 100,000 followers gone. Then TikTok banned us too.”
In a video, Danny Bones asked: “Was it the music, the message – what exactly is it that they don’t like?”
The bans came after Novara Media and TBIJ approached TikTok, Meta, YouTube, Spotify and X about the project’s content and whether it could make money from their platforms. Neither Novara Media nor TBIJ reported the accounts or asked for their removal.
Last week, after we approached Spotify for comment, it announced a new label for AI-generated artist identities. From September, AI profiles will carry a badge and will be excluded by default from Spotify’s editorial and algorithmic recommendations.
TikTok said it had banned the account, citing rules against hate speech, unlabelled AI-generated content and misleading synthetic content. Meta said it had removed content and taken enforcement action against the accounts. YouTube added transparency labels to several of the project’s videos, and said the channel is not in its partner programme and so cannot monetise content on the platform. X declined to comment.
On 11 August, the Node Project posted on X: “We’re now being removed by payment processors too. So this didn’t stop at Instagram and TikTok, and I doubt it stops here. This cancellation is happening in real time. Organised and orchestrated.”
The Node Project remains on X and the project thanked the world’s richest man saying: “Thank you @elonmusk for X. We’re not going anywhere.”
Harriet Williamson is a commissioning editor and reporter for Novara Media.
Simon Childs is a commissioning editor and reporter for Novara Media.