DIY popstar Jimothy Lacoste kept us smiling all year

As the tedium of Britain’s Brexit-driven existential crisis continued throughout 2018, one young man popped up to remind us that life in the UK could still be, well, quite exciting. North Londoner Jimothy Lacoste (or Timothy Gonzales to his mum) kept us entertained all year with his low-key DIY production, tales of riding London’s public transport system, and his now iconic dance moves. Here’s five ways Jimothy Lacoste made us smile in 2018:

Jimothy Lacoste’s ‘Getting Busy’ dropped in mid 2017 and saw the North Londoner steadily build a cult following. The track introduced us to his deadpan delivery, wry sense of humour and the catchphrase ‘Life is getting quite exciting’. By the start of 2018, it was becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. Since then he’s made low-key electro-pop anthems in praise of London’s public transport system (‘Subway System’), learning foreign languages (‘I Can Speak Spanish’), tackling the benzo crisis ('Drugs') and dressing with class (‘Fashion’).

By the end of January, Jimothy’s journey to cult hero status was speeding up and he made his live debut with a roadblock gig at Dalston’s tiny Junction House, before staging ‘An Evening With Jimothy Lacoste’ at North London’s Screen On The Green cinema. There he took part in a Q&A, performed a live set flanked by two bomber-jacketed bouncers and introduced the world to his iconic ‘Subway System’ video (RIP). Since then he’s packed out tents and stages at Reading and Field Day, Primavera and Pitchfork Paris, headlined The Tuffnel Park Dome in his native North London and announced a huge UK tour for 2019 that takes in everywhere form Edinburgh to Oxford and a massive gig at Koko in London.

No-one moves quite like Timothy Gonzales. Inspired by Michael Jackson and honed through years of freestyling in front of the mirror, Lacoste’s signature moves are an integral part of his allure. Whether he’s dancing on top of bus stops or freestyling on tower blocks we can barely take our eyes off him.

The stunts pulled in Jimothy Lacoste’s DIY videos were deemed such a threat to public safety that Transport For London forced YouTube to pull his ‘Subway System’ video from their platform. “When that got taken down I was super angry,” Jimothy tells us. “As soon as I made the track I knew what I needed to do in the video, and that would have got a million views by now I reckon.” The promo in question saw Jimothy nonchalantly riding a bike through a tube station, sitting atop an escalator, racing down through a fire escape staircase and performing his trademark dance moves with the aid of a tube train pole. Elsewhere we’ve seen Jimothy riding a horse in Spain in ‘I Can Speak Spanish’, dressing like a millionaire in ‘Fashion’ and getting up to more public transport-based high jinx in ‘Getting Busy’ and ‘Future BAE’.

You’d expect someone with the moniker Jimothy Lacoste to be quite into their clothes, and Jimothy’s taste for smart primary colour cords and jeans, tucked in striped shirts and sensible, quarter-zip pullovers has inspired a cohort to go digging round their local car boot sale for vintage Ralph Lauren, YSL, and of course, Lacoste. No-one’s worn primary colour combos with such aplomb since Rupert The Bear was doing bits in the 90s.

Sean Griffiths is Mixmag's Deputy Editor, follow him on Twitter

Jimothy Lacoste plays London’s Koko on February 14