Dylan Kwabena Mills (born 18 September 1984), known professionally as Dizzee Rascal, is a British MC and rapper. A pioneer of grime music, his work has also incorporated elements of UK garage, bassline, British hip hop, and R&B.
Dizzee Rascal released his debut album Boy in da Corner in 2003. It earned him the 2003 Mercury Prize, and has since been considered a grime classic. Follow-up albums Showtime, Maths + English, and Tongue n' Cheek were critically praised and certified platinum, with Tongue n' Cheek going platinum for sales exceeding 300,000 units in the United Kingdom. He has achieved 5 UK number-one singles, "Dance wiv Me", "Bonkers", "Holiday", "Dirtee Disco" and "Shout".
Early life
Dizzee Rascal was born as Dylan Kwabena Mills on 18 September 1984 in Bow, London. His Nigerian father died when Dizzee was young, and he was raised in Bow, in a single-parent family, by his Ghanaian mother Priscilla, about whom he says, "I had issues as a kid. I was violent and disruptive. The way my mum helped was by finding me a different school every time I got kicked out, always fighting to keep me in the school system."
He attended a series of schools in east London, including Langdon Park School, and was expelled from four of them, including St Paul's Way Community School. Reportedly, it was around this time that a teacher was the first to call him "Rascal". Cagey about exactly what Rascal's youthful "madnesses" entailed, in early interviews he mentioned fighting with teachers, stealing cars, and robbing pizza delivery men. In the fifth school, he was excluded from all classes except music. He also used to attend YATI (Young Actors Theatre Islington). One of his teachers at school was the comedian Shazia Mirza, who taught him science.
He began making music on the school's computer, encouraged by his music teacher Joseph Robson, and during the summer holidays attended a music workshop organised by Tower Hamlets Summer University, of which he is now a patron. He was a childhood friend of footballer Danny Shittu, whom he described as "almost like a big brother", and at whose house he made his first mixtapes and tracks. Unusually among his friends, he read the heavy metal magazine Kerrang! and was a fan of the grunge band Nirvana.
Career
2000–2003: Early career
Around the age of 14, Dizzee Rascal became an amateur drum and bass DJ, also rapping over tracks as customary in sound system culture, and making occasional appearances on local pirate radio stations. Aged sixteen, he self-produced his first single, "I Luv U". In 2002, he jointly formed the Roll Deep Crew, a 13-piece garage collective, with former school friends. He also signed a solo deal with the record label XL.
During his early career, Rascal worked with his mentor Wiley to create the still-unreleased song "We Ain't Having It" and rapped on some Sidewinder recordings. He made some instrumentals including "Go" and "Ho" and "Streetfighter". Rascal had an ongoing feud, from late 2003, with fellow underground grime artist Crazy Titch, which began when a fight broke out between the pair during a set on a guest show on the pirate radio station Deja Vu FM. The set, which features many seminal early grime artists, was filmed, and has accumulated over a million views on YouTube and resulted in the two exchanging diss tracks.
After winning a Sidewinder Award for Best Newcomer MC in 2002, Dizzee was a judge on the Sky1 show Must Be The Music.
He also did a verse on the Roll Deep remix of "Let's Push Things Forward" on the 2002 album Weak Become Heroes and 12" single by The Streets.
2003–2004: Boy in da Corner
Dizzee's first solo album, Boy in da Corner, was released to universal critical acclaim in August 2003, entering the UK Top 40 at #40. The album would peak at #23. In the same week the album was released, whilst performing with Roll Deep Crew in Cyprus, Dizzee was stabbed six times. Many tabloids suggested that this event was connected to an apparent feud between Dizzee and garage act So Solid Crew, and his pinching Lisa Maffia's buttocks. After Dizzee was hospitalised, So Solid Crew member "Megaman" – real name Dwayne Vincent – was questioned about the incident, but was released by Cypriot police.