The Fader’s David Renshaw links up with British-Nigerian rap sensation Flohio to talk London, selecting beats and her rapid-fire flow.
“Flohio spent the first 8 of her 25 years on earth living in Nigeria. When her pilot father moved the family to London in the early 2000s she found the difference in culture a shock to the system. ‘Everything was different about it,’ she says of her adoptive home some 17 years later over drinks in the east of the city. ‘The roads, the atmosphere, the weather, school. I was adjusting to whole new city.’
“The fast-paced lifestyle and near-constant rain of the English capital soon seeped into Flohio’s psyche and, eventually, her music. Today she raps with great clarity over a hybrid sound drawn from the U.K.’s most forward-looking underground cultures, equally adept at going in on an old-school grime beat as she is at working with boundary-pushing electronic producers. She first broke out in 2016 when London producers God Golony featured her on the bruising ‘SE16,’ named after her south London postcode. She then teamed up with the production duo again a year later when she appeared on ‘Fights.’ This flurry of activity, alongside a collaboration with Night Slugs co-founder L-Vis 1990, established Flohio as a serious talent. As she explained during our interview in early June, avoiding classification while repping her city is what means the most to her.”
Watch the video for Flohio’s new track ‘Wild Yout’ below and learn more about her Rewire 2019 performance atFlohio.
Get your Rewire 2019 Festival pass atTickets.