He sees his stabbing last June as a consequence of that wider tension. took that idea and expanded on it, making. Across 20 songs, he shares experiences in Church End over mellow, drum-light instrumentals. Now I do, but prior to that, all my friends were literally trapping while I’m trying to tap out.”. Nines meanwhile, has gone silent on social media but is scheduled to perform at The Garage club in Islington, north London, on 19 April after a headline set at the O2 Academy was cancelled due to "unforeseen circumstances". “From young I knew I would get money,” he tells me, and remembers making thousands of pounds in his early teens. His prison address was posted to his Twitter account, and prison officers would have to empty bin liners full of envelopes into his cell. Success is not certain, he says, until his family are out of harm’s way. Crabs in a Bucket is released 28 August on Warner Records, Available for everyone, funded by readers. But he also dresses to 'the nines' on occasion, such as his appearance at a Burberry show at London Fashion Week where he was alongside friend Tinie Tempah and met presenter Dermot O'Leary. As well as music, writing and releasing short films has given him focus, with comedy-drama shorts Crop Circle and Crop Circle 2 offering takes on life in Church Road. Early videos cast him as a big-hearted baron of north-west London – in My Hood, for example, he passes out Christmas turkeys to estate residents. A Met Police spokesperson told, Oliver Tetlow was shot six times in Harlesden, north west London, BREAKING: Grime MC Cbiz cleared of murder after trial collapses. But Nines is adapting. On Handle It (from his second mixtape, Gone Till November), it’s “fiends in staircases”, no electricity in his home, and the “saddest night” after the murder of an older brother. © 2020 Complex Media, Inc. All Rights Reserved. All of our pieces are designed in house in our Manchester HQ to provide effortless wardrobe essentials for the modern gentleman. But his thirst for money was tempered with foresight; a quiet realisation that in the glamorous depictions of kingpins in the films and TV series he grew up on, such as Scarface and The Wire, “none of them end up like the flipping Hangover – no one drives off into the sunset”. He is talking about Church End in Harlesden, north-west London. Jay Z and Puffy are still eating off Rocawear and Sean John, respectively. Nines served five months, writing TV scripts to pass the time. “We always complain, but now I’m in a position to help.”, He is aiming to regenerate the local community hub, the Church End & Roundwood Unity Centre, with proposals that include converting the concrete pitches to astroturf and staging a series of career workshops about the entertainment industry, from music law to scriptwriting. With a few days of freedom remaining, where “everyone was like: ‘Let’s go party, let’s go strip club,’” he turned to music. All rights reserved. Our editorial content is not influenced by any commissions we receive. His latest mixtape, called One Foot In, dropped in August last year while his latest single, Yay, is available on iTunes. His brother Wayne Freckleton, who was also known as Zino, was a suspected member of the north-west London Church Road gang and was murdered in 2008 as he waited for his cousin to get his hair cut at at Ike's Barbershop on Acton Lane in Harlesden. Nines has propelled the sprawling estate in which he was raised into British rap folklore by weaving subtle social commentary into punchline-rich street diaries. “My house got shot up and shit like that as a kid. “I always wanted to take the hood with me and help everyone out,” he says, “I wanted to make the ends feel part of it.”, Nines’ career faltered in 2013 when he was charged with intent to supply cannabis. The mail came from Bournemouth and Bermondsey, Luton and Liverpool, and he gratefully read notes from supporters eager to pull him through his sentence. Here are 25 rapper-owned clothing lines we can remember, ranked from worst to best. Rappers are busy people and it's hard being a great artist in two demanding industries. on March 18, 2016. dropped in August last year while his latest single, Yay, is available on iTunes. Back in 2011, British rap was a few years away from its current golden age and participation seemed more like sport than a commercial career. “I could have booked a flight and been chilling on a beach, but I’m hanging on the estate every day, top of the charts, and look, I ended up getting stabbed. Faithful stans will rock their garbage even though kids make fun of them in school. Nines cut a dapper figure when he attended last month's Brit Awards, Nines's star continued to rise and included an appearance in a music video alongside pop star and former X-Factor judge Tulisa Contostavlos. These days it seems like rappers get a clothing line as soon as they get a deal, which is unfortunate. A Met Police spokesperson told IBTimes UK that a rapper feud was one line of enquiry but no charges have been laid. Tetlow, 27, was killed by a gunman who stepped out of a car and opened fire with what police believe was an automatic weapon. It's fucked up when your heroes don't care about your feelings. His third album, Crabs in a Bucket, is likely to go Top 5, as did his 2017 debut, One Foot Out, and Crop Circle the following year. Nines pushed his American-dream rap fantasies through a London filter. In 2018, he performed his track I See You Shining to 80,000 people at Wembley stadium as the walk-out music for the boxer Anthony Joshua, and then was “back on the block” not long after. “I just cared about financial freedom,” he says. Angel Diaz is a staff writer for Complex Media. The connection followed the publication online of a video showing Nines with a handful of gold jewellery, including an A, A few hours later, the story took a tragic turn when an innocent bystander, later named as Oliver Tetlow, was gunned down, in Church Road, Harlesden. They had a shop in New Jersey where they sold clothing with their signature logo on them. But for every fondly remembered line or thriving brand, there are even more that fell by the wayside. Rapper clothing lines were a rarity once upon a time. The kids in the area, he says, “need to know that you can be in the music industry and you don’t need to be a rapper. When he's not wearing the colours of his beloved Arsenal FC, Nines usually opts for the comfort of an Armani tracksuit. Sign-up for Complex Shop, our new eCommerce store fusing content and commerce. “Everyone used to go party, and I stood on the corner and stayed trapping, because I was like: ‘Blud, I need to get out of this shit one day.’”. Other soon followed suit to much success. 498.8k Followers, 1 Following, 225 Posts - See Instagram photos and videos from @csbnines Church Road, as it is known locally, wrestles with some of the worst levels of deprivation in the borough of Brent, and unemployment figures well above the London average. But for every fondly remembered line or thriving brand, there are even more that fell by the wayside. The title of the new album alludes to the tensions and difficulties of leaving his surroundings: last summer, Nines was stabbed in Maida Vale, a few miles from the estate. A few hours later, the story took a tragic turn when an innocent bystander, later named as Oliver Tetlow, was gunned down in Church Road, Harlesden. After bursting on to the UK rap scene in 2011 with his From Church Road To Hollywood mixtape he became one of the UK's most promising RnB stars. The connection followed the publication online of a video showing Nines with a handful of gold jewellery, including an Audemars Piguet watch that was supposedly stolen from South Kilburn rapper Cbiz. The singer later said her "C" represented "Camden", where she is from. When boredom now looms, “I find something on Netflix,” he says, “like everyone else.” And he’ll push on with the regeneration project, still handing out turkeys – figuratively speaking – to his estate.