Get To Know: Mowgs, Surviving On The Bare Necessities

Necessity, the mother of all invention and the motivation for why so many of us work, build and maintain. At just 24-years old, Birmingham rapper Mowgs has seen life through various lenses; growing up in a strict Muslim household, near-death situations, becoming a father of two, and now pursuing music, he describes himself as an “old soul” that is wise beyond his years.

Emerging onto the music scene in 2017, with the single Truth Be Told at only 18-years-old, the release was merely an upload for the rapper but quickly caught the attention of 10,000 viewers in a week. Now releasing his first full-length project, Bare Necessities, we are embarking on a journey that is only at the beginning of a legacy that Mowgs is curating. The 17-track mixtape takes listeners on a journey through his perspective, storytelling rap, that is setting Mowgs apart from other Birmingham rappers and UK artists. Describing the mixtape as therapeutic, it was created over the span of the last four years, with the intention of humanising the realities of growing up on the streets.

With features from Rimzee, S1mba, Country Dons, Ard Adz, and Mist, the album title is a play on Disney’s, The Jungle Book theme song sang by the character, Mowgli. The laid-back rap featured throughout the project is something that the UK scene has been missing, providing a needed sound that doesn’t involve drill. Releasing the video for the single Neighbourhood Hero yesterday, he has been soft launching the project since early this year. This single in particular will prove to be loved by listeners, providing a much-loved sample. “I’ve got a fussy ear for beats; it’ll take me a long time to find the beat and make a song to it. Right now, I have a producer called Manny that knows what I like now so it’s made the process easier.”

This is a different ball game for Mowgs though; doing interviews, rehearsing for live shows, and having a team behind him, he is putting in the work to solidify his presence in music. A large part of that drive comes from being a father to two daughters, “I can’t go off the rails I have to give them the best life they can possibly have.”

Like many of rap music’s iconic figures, the early stages of life were often the toughest, “we grew up on minimal stuff”, says Mowgs. “Mum made do with what she could, clothes, hand me downs. I remember we moved to a house and my mum brought a sofa from a charity shop.” Growing up in a strict Muslim household and attending Islamic school for the majority of his school life, music found Mowgs pretty late as it wasn’t something he was allowed to listen to.

As platforms like Youtube had more of a presence back then, his friends began introducing him to artists like 50 Cent which induced his love for spitting bars. With money always at the forefront of his mind and escaping the circumstances of that certain degree of poverty, he found that “education wasn’t for me at all. I was always in trouble in school so half the time I never had proper lessons. I was in mentoring a lot of the time and dropped out in year 9 and just started doing my thing.”

No route taken would prove to be easy, describing Birmingham as "crabs in a bucket", doing his thing put the young rapper in a life or death situation that drove him to loneliness and paranoia that he is still dealing with todsy. But now realising that those feelings do not build empires; he is building on a legacy that is beneficial and motivational for young men in similar circumstances. “I want a yout to look at my life, what I’ve done and where I’ve come from and feel motivated to do better.”

“I want people to know I left a positive impact on this world, really and truly when it’s all said and done it’s what people say about you that matters and the impact you’ve made.”

Stream Bare Necessities now!