When Mist was in prison over Christmas in 2014, his resettlement officer asked him: “Who are you?” The Birmingham rapper couldn’t immediately answer, so in his cell he started writing personal, therapeutic lyrics about his parents’ deaths and the “pure pain” of knowing his daughter had “turned grown while I was in the pen”.
He has barely looked back since, with 40m YouTube views and a Top 5 chart position for last month’s Diamond in the Dirt EP. With all the screaming and the sea of mobile phones, this show feels like a victory lap, but despite the euphoria, his bars retain the raw, melancholy edge that transformed his career: “It still hurts that my mum can’t see my success.”
In grime’s competitive field, the 25-year old is different. With London Asian producer and fellow MC Steel Banglez on the eerie, catchy beats, the Caribbean-descended Mist’s music reflects multicultural Birmingham, with a sprinkling of reggae, garage, Brummie patois and Punjabi. And it’s oddly refreshing to hear a major grime star speak like Noddy Holder.
The yellow tracksuited rapper works the crowd into a growing frenzy. Mosh Pit turns the venue into one. In Game Changer, he drily sings his life: “Hot like Nelly, Machiavelli, Glaston-berry, see me on the telly!” For all the torrent of F-words, N-words and harrowing lyrics about funerals, madness, street beefs and helicopter police chases, there is a lovely moment when the bravado momentarily drops and we get a glimpse of an emotional person who has lost his mum, and is briefly overawed by the turnaround in his life. As he puts it: “This is crackin’.”
- Mist is at Rock City, Nottingham, on 9 March. Box office: 0115-950 6547. Then touring until 22 March.
