He grew up on the outskirts of Northampton, a town around 60 miles north of London, in an area known colloquially as Bush due to the wash of greenery that surrounds its suburban maze of low-rise homes and housing projects. He talks about bouncing from place to place as a kid, his young mum doing everything she could to maintain some semblance of consistency for her two children as father figures passed in and out of their lives, and money proved scarce. His hands stay stuffed in his hoodie pocket, fiddling absentmindedly with a gold coin ring.īut after a bit of back-and-forth (and a couple of coffees), his demeanour shifts, and his responses start shooting back like a stream of consciousness, punctuated with wild, twitchy gesticulations. “And from then I was called ‘Slow Ty,’ because I slurred my words too.” The 23-year-old’s eyes flit around the room as he speaks, and you get the sense of that young kid drinking the world in. “I was in my own little world, always zoning out but also mad observant: I’d just sit back and watch,” he explains, thinking back.
His greeting on this Friday evening in May-a half-whispered “hello”-is barely audible over the noise spilling out of the bars down at street level.īorn Tyron Frampton, his moniker comes from a childhood nickname-or taunt, depending on how you look at it. But it’s hard to recognize that scowling performer in the quiet, even meek character perched on the edge of a sofa in his record label’s London office. His tattoos, close-cropped hair, and tangled mic cord conjure images of hardcore punk frontmen rather than hoods-up grime MCs, as he spits scowling lyrics over rough-edged beats that recall Boy in Da Corner -era Dizzee Rascal. He strips to his boxers and tosses himself to the front rows of his audience. Slowthai ’s live shows are spectacles of sweat and skin.