Rizzle Kicks
| Rizzle Kicks | |
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Rizzle Kicks in concert at Jesus College May Ball, 2012
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| Background information | |
| Origin | Brighton, England |
| Genres | |
| Instruments | |
| Years active | 2008–present |
| Labels | Island |
| Website | www |
| Members | Jordan Stephens Harley Alexander-Sule |
Rizzle Kicks is an English hip hop duo from Brighton, consisting of Jordan "Rizzle" Stephens (born 25 January 1992 ) and Harley "Sylvester" Alexander-Sule (born 23 November 1991 ). Their debut album Stereo Typical was released on 31 October 2011. As of May 2012, Rizzle Kicks have sold over 1 million singles and over 600,000 albums in the UK.
In 2006, Jordan began attending rap and performance workshops with the Brighton-based charity AudioActive, joined a year later by Harley. The pair attended AudioActive's Hip Hop Foundation project and Jordan continued attending workshops and performances until 2010. Jordan is quoted as saying this work helped the duo "hone our skills and build a passion towards the career that we're in now. AudioActive did us a lot of good and without them we wouldn't be here!"
Jordan and Harley both attended Brit School, where Jordan studied media and Harley studied theatre. Jordan was in the process of making his mixtape Minor Breaches of Discipline where he rapped over samples of some of their favourite artists (Gorillaz, Lily Allen, Arctic Monkeys) and asked Harley to sing over some of the tracks. Realising how well their styles fitted together, they formed Rizzle Kicks in 2008. The name stems from 'Green Rizla', an early nickname given to Stephens by a football teammate after a crew of the same name from the school that he attended at the time. That nickname evolved into 'Rizzle', and the duo decided on the suffix 'kicks' due to their shared love of football.
As a newly formed duo, they hustled for beats from local producers, honing their sound, and created several bedroom demos, three of which ended up on their debut album. They also created a presence online; blogging on their website "Your Daily Kicks" as well as posting lo-fi music videos to their YouTube channel. The videos were co-directed by the band and made by Toby Lockerbie, a wedding photographer they met at a party. A video was made for a demo of "Down with the Trumpets" in the summer of 2010, closely followed by the video for "Miss Cigarette". During that time, they had finished college and Harley went on to work as an assistant drama teacher, whilst Jordan was flipping burgers at the Corals Greyhound Stadium in Hove.
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