Dizzee Rascal - Early Life

Early Life

Mills' father died when he was young, and he was raised in Bow, in the East End of London in a single-parent family by his Ghanaian mother Priscilla, about whom he says: "I had issues as a kid. I was violent and disruptive. The way my mum helped was by finding me a different school every time I got kicked out, always fighting to keep me in the school system."

He attended a series of schools in East London, and was expelled from four of them, including St Paul's Way Community School he also went to Langdon Park Secondary School in east london. – it was a teacher who first called him "Rascal." Cagey about exactly what Mills'youthful "madnesses" entailed, in early interviews he mentioned fighting with teachers, stealing cars and robbing pizza delivery men. In the fifth school he was excluded from all classes except music. He also used to attend YATI (Young Actors Theatre Islington).

He began making music on the school's computer, encouraged by a music teacher, Mr Smith, and during the summer holidays attended a music workshop organised by Tower Hamlets Summer University of which he is now a patron. His mother bought him his first turntables.

He was a childhood friend of Nigerian footballer Danny Shittu, whom Mills described as "like a big brother."