‘I’ve rebranded as a stoic. It’s my ting now!’ The crime and punishment of Pozer, UK rap’s fastest, fiercest talent

In a chaotic London childhood, Tyrone Paul got drawn into drug dealing and worse before hauling himself into the charts. He opens up about his psychological scars and trust issues

In one of Pozer’s earliest memories, nearly two decades before he became one of the most talented rappers in the UK, he is six years old, running from his mum’s landlord. “He come knock the door, my mum’s acting like we’re not here, we skid out, go shop. When we’re walking back he’s clocked us, so me and her start running, we hop a gate and we’re now in the communal gardens of an estate. That guy booted open the ting. Me and my mum are pretend-playing with a ball. He picks it up – but all the little hoodlums in the area circle him: ‘What you doing?’”

The way he recounts his life – both in his music and in our conversation, which takes place at a west London recording studio – it seems as if he was always on the move like this, on alert. Born Tyrone Paul and now 23 years old, he moved as a child around south London with his single mother, sometimes with his father when he was out of prison, or a family friend when his father was back on the run. In his teens, “I used to smoke weed with a couple of girls, and I’d say to them: ‘Every day I wake up, it feels like I’m actively tensing my muscles, and I’m not.’ You wish someone could tell you what’s going on.”