We took UK rapper M Huncho back to the bits, hitting up some of the landmarks in North-West London that had an impact on his early life. From the block where he grew up to the building where he shot the cover of his first EP, M Huncho showed us around his old stomping ground, sharing stories about life, music, and escaping the jungle. Here’s what went down.
You might not know many details about M Huncho’s life - his fans don’t even know his real name, or what his face looks like beneath the Lucien Clarke-designed masks he wears - but that didn’t stop him from being extremely real with us when we hit up his once local area of North-West London. Growing up as a kid in Crones Court, South Kilburn, M Huncho described his experience as, “Surviving. Yeah, constant survival, especially when you come from lower income neighbourhoods.”
Crones Court, South Kilburn
Walking around the council estates where he grew up, he explained, “I grew up with both parents. I had a great upbringing, but it’s my own choices that made me fall into the wrong things. My home life was actually really good. I’m a delinquent so that’s my fault. Now that I am grown up, I’m making amends for all those things.” In his music, his livelihood, and his worldviews, it’s obvious M Huncho’s giving back to the community that made him who he is.
That’s something that he makes clear in the way he speaks about South Kilburn; there’s no bad blood here. Memories decorate the walls of this area, figuratively and literally, seen when we walked past a graffiti tag reading ‘Abotz’. “This is my friend Abotz - he’s been tagging for years,” M Huncho said. “He’s got his own exhibitions now. I’ve always urged him to break the stereotypes of being a person from a council estate. There’s so much more that we can achieve. People just think that we’re dumb; we’re not dumb.”
As we passed another brick wall, painted with a mural of a boy, M Huncho said, “Rest in peace, Dylan. That’s a mural made for one of the kids that a lot of my friends grew up with - I knew him as well but my friends were closer to him. He passed away and they made this mural a long time ago; it’s still standing.” When we asked him more about it, he said, “there’s a lot of respect here. No one would tag over that.”
Whilst you might think he spent his childhood thinking about the career he was about to start, M Huncho said, “I never thought about music growing up here. I got into music very far into life. My priorities were making money. What changed everything is I went to go link my friend in the studio. He decided to leave, and [tell] the engineer at the time, “yeah, go on YouTube. Let’s put on this type beat.” When we asked him who the type beat was, he said, “At that time it was a Playboi Carti type beat. I told him: this is the type of sound I’m going for, this is what I’m trying to do.”
Brondesbury Park Station
After we got done looking around the block where it all started, M Huncho took us to the spot where he shot his first EP cover for “Get Out” (2017). Talking about the EP, he explained, “That was the first thing I’ve ever done when it came down to the music industry and actually compiling a project together with a body of work. So I felt like, what better way to do it than here?”
Walking out of Brondesbury Park Station, towards the building where the EP cover was shot, M Huncho pointed out, “As you can see there’s a new building here now called Embankment House, but before this building was here, the side of the [old] building was absolutely demolished. There was a big mural at the top of it that said “TRAP HOUSE” so what I did is I squatted down on like a pile of dirt [to get the pic].”
That EP then went on to launch M Huncho into the UK rap music scene, with his single “Mediocre” in particular attracting a ton of attention from industry insiders and fans alike. “Get Out” put M Huncho on the map, making this seemingly random building next to Brondesbury Park Station an unassuming part of recent UK rap history.
Hit up our YouTube to watch the full video with M Huncho, where we also hit up Brent Cross Shopping Centre, and the studio with producer Quincy.
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