Background and career
Dylan Kwabena Mills (born 18 September 1984), known professionally as Dizzee Rascal, is a British rapper and MC. He is often credited as a pioneer of British hip hop and grime music and was ranked by Complex as one of the greatest British rappers of all time. His work has also incorporated elements of UK garage, bassline and R&B. Dizzee Rascal's music is also often credited with bringing UK rap into the mainstream and became the country's first rapper to achieve international recognition. After signing with independent label XL Recordings in 2002, the rapper released his self-produced debut album Boy in da Corner in 2003. which received widespread critical acclaim and earned him the Mercury Prize in 2003, eventually being certified platinum by the British Phonographic Industry. It is often regarded as the best British hip hop album of all time. It was followed up with the albums Showtime (2004) and Maths + English (2007), which were also critically praised and were certified gold, both peaking within the top ten of the UK Albums Chart. His next album, Tongue n' Cheek (2009) saw a departure from grime for a more pop-oriented sound. It was certified double platinum and garnered four UK Singles Chart number one singles—"Dance wiv Me", "Bonkers", "Holiday" and "Dirtee Disco". His fifth album, The Fifth (2013), continued his experimental commercial sound and although it received less favourable reviews than his previous albums, it still peaked in the top 10 of the UK Albums Chart. He returned to his grime roots with 2017's Raskit, and has since released E3 AF in 2020 and Don't Take It Personal in 2024. Throughout his career, Dizzee Rascal has worked with a number of notable artists including Arctic Monkeys, Calvin Harris, Florence and the Machine, Robbie Williams, Shakira, Ty Dolla Sign, UGK, and will.i.am.
Dylan Kwabena Mills was born on 18 September 1984 in Forest Gate. His Nigerian father died when he was two years old, and the circumstances of his father’s death are still unknown to him: "There’s obviously something that’s gone on that’s been kept from me, but it’s something my mum doesn’t like going into". He was raised on a council estate 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.
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. In July 2002, Dizzee marked his first appearance on an official, commercially released song by appearing on the Roll Deep remix of The Streets' song "Let's Push Things Forward", which appeared as a b-side on the CD release of the single "Weak Become Heroes".
Dizzee's first solo album, Boy in da Corner, was released to universal critical acclaim in August 2003, entering the UK Albums Chart at No. 40. The album peaked at No. 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.
Following the success of single "I Luv U" and the album, the second single from Boy in da Corner was "Fix Up, Look Sharp". The single, released in August 2003, gave Dizzee his first UK Top 20 single and also became the biggest hit from his debut album. In September, Dizzee was awarded the prestigious Mercury Prize for the best album of 2003. He was the youngest person at 19 years old to do so and the second rapper, after Ms. Dynamite the previous year. The album was also chosen as the No. 1 album of the year by Planet Sound, and as one of the top 50 albums of the year by Rolling Stone. His unique style, as "words pour out at a high pitch and pace, as if syllables are the only thing that can hold back a scream", have given him a sound that hip hop heads can embrace as something new and original in the hip hop scene. Later in the year he collaborated with the Basement Jaxx on their third album, Kish Kash on the track "Lucky Star". The track was released as a single in November 2003 and gave Dizzee his third top 30 hit. The third and final single, taken from his debut album, was "Jus' a Rascal", which became his fourth top 30 success. The song was also featured in the film Kidulthood released in 2006. "Jezebel" was not a single from the album, but was well received, gaining exposure and popularity on the underground scene. The song told the tale of a young London girl, who through years of going to parties, getting drunk, doing drugs and having sex earned herself the title Jezebel. He made his US concert debut on 7 February 2004 at Volume in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.
In 2004, Dizzee Rascal won the NME Award for Innovation. His second album, Showtime, was released in September of the same year, eclipsing the peak of his debut album by entering the UK Albums Chart at No. 8. The first single from the album, released two weeks earlier in August 2004, was titled "Stand Up Tall"; it was written and produced by grime producer DJ Youngstar of Pulse-X. The title track was featured on the soundtrack for the first FIFA Street video game. The second single "Dream", another top 20 hit, was released in November 2004. It sampled (and used the chorus of) Captain Sensible's song "Happy Talk", originally from the makers of Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific. The "Dream" music video consisted of a mock 1950s style children's marionette show depicting scenes corresponding to the lyrics about Dizzee's youth: street culture, crime, single teenage mothers, pirate radio and garage clubs. Later in 2004, Dizzee Rascal was part of Band Aid 20, a group of British musicians who re-recorded "Do They Know It's Christmas?" He did not sing in the song; rather, he rapped two lines of it ("Spare a thought this yuletide for the deprived, if the table was turned would you survive?" and "You ain't gotta feel guilt just selfless, give a little help to the helpless"). Dizzee Rascal was the first person to add to the song since the original was released; this would mark the first time that Dizzee reached the number one spot in the UK Singles Chart, albeit as part of the ensemble. In 2004, Dizzee Rascal made an international endorsement deal with urban brand Eckō Unltd. and designed his own shoe with Nike in 2005. In March 2005, the double A-side single "Off 2 Work" / "Graftin'" was released. "Graftin'" was the third and final single from the Showtime album, whilst "Off 2 Work" was a new track that did not appear on either of his albums. The accompanying music video featured Rascal in various ordinary workplace situations (as a policeman, a fast food vendor, a businessman, etc.) and as Prime Minister, announcing his engagement to Cherie Blair. It would prove to be Dizzee's lowest charting single to date, peaking at No. 44.
Sources
Net-worth figure: Celebrity Net Worth (October 2026), in USD. Biography and career facts: the person's Wikipedia article and linked reporting. Snapshot date for all StarWorth figures: 28 October 2026.
