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. In the same week the album was released, whilst performing with Roll Deep Crew in Cyprus, Dizzee was stabbed six times. 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.ĭizzee'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 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.Īfter winning a Sidewinder Award for Best Newcomer MC in 2002, Dizzee was a judge on the Sky1 show Must Be The Music. 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. He made some instrumentals including "Go" and "Ho" and "Streetfighter". ĭuring 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 also signed a solo deal with the record label XL. In 2002, he jointly formed the Roll Deep Crew, a 13-piece garage collective, with former school friends. Aged sixteen, he self-produced his first single, " I Luv U". Rascal in 2009 2000–2003: Early career Īround 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. Unusually among his friends, he read the heavy metal magazine Kerrang! and was a fan of the grunge band Nirvana. 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. He began making music on the school's computer, encouraged by a music teacher, and during the summer holidays attended a music workshop organised by Tower Hamlets Summer University, of which he is now a patron. One of his teachers at school was the comedian Shazia Mirza, who taught him science. He also used to attend YATI (Young Actors Theatre Islington). In the fifth school, he was excluded from all classes except music. Cagey about exactly what Rascal's youthful "madnesses" entailed, in early interviews he mentioned fighting with teachers, stealing cars, and robbing pizza delivery men.
Reportedly, it was around this time that a teacher was the first to call him "Rascal".
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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. 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." 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.