“I was born and raised in north west Birmingham. Then I moved around a lot… north Brum, south Brum, London, then back to north west,” he explains. But, throughout it all, throughout the upheavals and change of scenery, one constant remained. His mum.
“She’s a hero. She’s always been there. It was only ever me and my Mum. Of course, I’ve got my Nan and my Aunts and Uncles and all that, but it was only ever really me and her for years. She taught me everything. There’s no Dad thing. She played both. She looked after me, took me to football. Everything.”
M1llionz talks with a candour and warmth that matches his moniker. It’s the same energy that not so much carries you through tracks like Lagga and Y PREE but allows you to levitate above them. His rawness and off-beat delivery makes tracks feel more like stories than the usual repetition of trap and drill beats that fill the UK soundscape. Enriched with elements of patois, his tone is something, again, he thanks the influence of his mother for as it seems to stem from his early exposure to his Jamaican roots.
“I don’t know where my flow comes from exactly,” he contemplates. “The way I’ve crossed my sound with the Jamaican influence is different. But, it comes from within me. I’ve always had it. It’s the way I write, innit. I don’t write to beats, for one. And two, I do a thing where I miss the drop. I don’t do things in set form. I like the feel of doing it a little off. I do it because it allows me to tell a proper story.”
The same energy is there when M1llionz talks, but it feels different. His delivery does not stutter or obstruct but it glides like a pebble scaled over water. He’s concise, considered and careful in his construction of speech. Not because he has to think. It’s more that he is careful in regards to the information he wants to divulge. Nevertheless, his insights are immediate, insightful and profound.