Lancey Foux, UK rap’s great sonic shapeshifter, is coming for the dancefloor next

Psychedelic guitar swirls like smoke rings over deconstructed trap, while the low end of Lancey Foux’s vocals melt like honey into my eardrums and stop me in my tracks. Just hours ago, a time-sensitive link to a playlist of tracks which will be whittled down to form his forthcoming LP lit up my phone. Now, I’m looping through 31 unnamed, unreleased files as I weave down boujee side streets, on my way to chop it up with the East London-hailing hip hop shapeshifter over dinner at Park Chinois in Mayfair.

Lancey’s refusal to be defined is at maximal across ‘THE TIME OF OUR LIVES’. Hypnotic slow jam ‘Make It Home’, which dropped in August, feels like it could have been lifted from a Wong Kar-wai film set in ’90s Hong Kong, while he croons candid bars about infidelity to braggadocio about getting naked on a yacht, before the record swerves into waved synths, 808s and grime. One track, which I later learn is titled ‘Rockstar Rider’, he produced entirely on his own, marking his first solo production credit.

I pause the music as I’m led to a red velvet booth — just as Lancey strolls in and turns the volume back up. Gliding through the mirrored restaurant past a baby grand piano and a cascade of turning heads, he cuts an otherworldly figure: dressed in rhinestone double denim, midnight braids, towering at 6’5” in boots, and radiating magnetism from another galaxy. Flanked by his manager and security, the scene could feel intimidating — but the moment we sit down, his eyes spark like fireworks, and it’s clear Lancey’s ready to put everything on the table about his music and the journey to his most authentic project to date.

“My last album was about high rolling and being hyperactive — on ‘THE TIME OF OUR LIVES’ I’m rapping about having fun and my lived experiences. I’m swerving into new sounds, and it’s the most vulnerable, truthful, and ambitious I’ve ever been. There’s a song on the project for every single mood you can think of,” Lancey beams. “It’s about individuality, letting loose, and self-expression. I want people to move to it, be selfish with it, and make it theirs.”

After all, Lancey’s a self-proclaimed lone wolf, devoted to carving out his own lane in music and creating numerous projects via synesthesia (a neurological phenomenon where sound involuntarily triggers another sense, most often seeing colours.) On this album, he might have entered his blue period, but he’s traversing moods and hues from soft cornflower and deep indigo as easily as rugged denim, bold cobalt, and electric.

‘THE TIME OF OUR LIVES’ was crafted for the dancefloor and will be followed by a club-driven ‘BLEACHED’ version, featuring remixes produced entirely by Lancey. At the same time, he’s launching CLUB BLUE — a party series for hip hop heads, audiophiles, and ravers — held mainly in grassroots venues and dedicated to featuring unreleased rap, electronic music and deep cuts. (He'll be performing and bringing the concept to the Mixmag Lab London soon, you can sign up for more info here.)

Lancey Foux was born in Newham to Ugandan parents, raised on a diet of grime and American hip hop. He cut his teeth on SoundCloud, uploading more than 500 freestyles over YouTube instrumentals recorded in his bedroom by the end of 2014. From there, he spent weekend after weekend rapping in 100-to-300-cap basement clubs across the city, carving out underground fame, propelled by his enigmatic sound.

Critics will tell you he pioneered “dream rage”, a microgenre fusing the pummelling pace, trap drums and untamed lyrical aggression of “rage” with the lush textures of psychedelic pop. But over the past decade they’ve labelled his music everything from trap rap, hyper rap, cloud rap, rage rap and “a British version of Playboi Carti” while Lancey’s clocked co-signs, features and friendships in everyone from Kwengface, KAYTRANADA, Kanye, Lil Yachty, Chip, Sexyy Red and Skepta. 

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“People want to buy into something familiar. Everyone loves to loop me in with artists they’ve seen me with or that I’ve done songs with, because it makes those associations make it easier for folks to digest what I’m doing,” Lancey reflects. “A lot of people haven’t understood my music, and that’s cool. I’ve been experimental in the past and ahead of the curve in the rap world a few times. I can do that again. But on this album, I want to try a different approach. I don’t want to exhaust the same method. I think I’ve finally made music the ‘overground’ can grasp—where people press play and go, ‘Okay!’.

“I’ve got a track called ‘Dial In’ that’s so euphoric and anthemic it feels like my Coachella or Glastonbury song. I’m manifesting massive singing crowds and headlining the biggest stage. Once you hear that song, you’ll want to know it for the rest of your life. I’ve always wanted a song that could do that — I’ve stood in awe watching Skepta do it all over the world, and I think I’ve done it with this one.”

Amidst the album’s heaters, Lancey dives into his emotions, heartbreak, and mental health — and gets personal. “It’s the only way I know how to do it. There are things I say in songs that I can’t explain,” he reveals. “Therapy is a big thing, and it’s great for some people. But I think my brain is wired differently. Anything I’m dealing with, I feel like no one in the world could fix my problem. It’s something I’ve got to handle myself. Maybe that’s because I’ve seen so much struggle in life, and so many people not getting their way, that I realised you’ve got to be the change you want to see, you get me? Music is my therapy and my best friend. The microphone is my best friend.”

Lancey’s earliest introduction to music came from his dad, a prominent local DJ with an expansive CD collection who supported famous Congolese artists performing in London (some of whom later headlined Wembley) before opening a family-run dryc leaners.

“I started making album artwork when I was super young. When my dad was DJing he'd say to me ‘Yo, pick this CD out’ so he could play that one next,” he recalls. “I got so fascinated by all the covers. There were so many around the house. So I would take out the sleeve of ones he didn’t use, fold the paper, draw something and make an album title.”

Lancey set his goals high. “When you're eight, nine or 10 you just think you can be everything. I was like, ‘I'm gonna be a footballer. Then I'm gonna rap on the side. I'm gonna own a business. I'm gonna be a Formula One driver.’ In my head I was everything. Making artwork was just one of the things I was doing.” 

The first physical CD he bought was 50 Cent’s ‘Get Rich or Die Tryin’’, while his older brother passed down his stack of hip hop heavyweights like Jay-Z, Fat Joe, Gucci Mane, and Lil Wayne.

Growing up in East London — the birthplace of grime — Lancey was surrounded by homegrown talent. With pioneers of the genre like Kano, Ghetts, and Scorcher in his neighbourhood, he absorbed it all.

“Grime felt so inclusive. One music video would have eight guys rapping!” Lancey exclaims. “You’d see them around all the time. They weren’t superstars driving Rolls Royces — they were big, but also regular guys, filming in the chicken shop down the road. It felt reachable, like that could be your friend or your brother, and that made you want to represent even more. Looking back now, I realise how crazy it was to witness their come-up like that.”

By Year 7, Lancey was dividing his lunchtimes between playing football with his best friend — now his manager — and messing around on GarageBand in the school music room with a mate who actually knew how to use it. Before long, those lunchtime sessions led to an invite to hang out at an ‘actual studio’.

“I went for two, three weeks straight, every night,” he remembers  “One friend’s sister was dating a producer, so he learnt how to make beats, and we’d rap over everything he brought. We weren’t even picking, just like, ‘This one! Next one.’ We we’re making grime, rap stuff, Afrobeats. Back then there weren’t really ‘type beats’ — you had to download whatever was on YouTube, and even then nothing felt tight.”

He enrolled in a West London college to study business, media and science but was kicked out seven months later for skipping class. “Life wasn’t good. I decided to put all my focus into making money. I didn’t feel like I had an extraordinary talent for anything — but I was very good at getting into trouble and not getting caught,” he confides.

By 17, Lancey was running whatever he could to make cash. “One day the guy I’m working with says he wants to start a record label — but that sounded like the worst idea to me,” Lancey laughs. “You already know when someone from the road says, ‘I’m gonna start a label,’ what they’re thinking. They’ll throw a bunch of money at it with no structure, and if it don’t work, someone’s getting hurt.”

Not long after, Lancey was sent a new address for his daily money drop that surprisingly proved legit. “I showed up to a full-blown professional studio. I was like, ‘damn, he’s actually doing it!’,” he says. “I didn’t smoke or drink, but it was three in the afternoon and I thought, I’ll just chill here — this is kinda fun, it’s taking me back to Year 7.”

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Eight hours went by, and the guy recording hadn’t made it past one song — pacing, smoking, writing, wasting time. Finally, around 11:PM, Lancey spoke up: “Yo, let me make something.” He jumped on YouTube, typed “flowers type beat” because he saw pink in his head, and found one. “Everyone’s looking at me like, ‘who the hell is this guy?’ I made the song in two takes, then I was like, ‘shit, let me do another one.’ I didn’t even have bars ready, I was just having fun. Next thing I know it’s 1:AM and I’d felt something I hadn’t felt in a long time.”

The others didn’t get it. “The beat was weird, not a rap beat. My vocals were all dragged out ’cause I didn’t know how to use my voice. All I knew was that I liked the beat and I knew what I wanted to say on it. And that’s the kind of music I wanted to hear when I went home.” 

Everyone in the area was making road music about what gang they were in. “I never wanted to be affiliated with no gang,” asserts Lancey. “I knew what came with it when I was 14 — I’d already seen it, I was around it every day. I wasn’t trying to glorify it. My music sounded different, and that’s how I wanted it.”

Lancey swapped numbers with the studio engineer, who charged £20 an hour, and continued hustling daily to afford nights in the booth for the next nine months. He released his first full-length project ‘PINK’ in September, 2015, and started popping up on people’s radar. “I was uploading on SoundCloud every day. By 2015, people knew my music and my name. Theo Motive, who used to DJ, was throwing a night at Visions and booked me for like £300-£500.”

But the night before his very first gig, Lancey wound up behind bars. “My cousin picked me up to drive to the studio, but it felt weird. He had to run something quick, and we didn’t realise the whole time we were being followed by police.”

By 1:AM they were booked. By 5:PM. the following day, thanks to a few technicalities, they were bailed out — just in time to make the show. But not before a life-altering talk with his mother, who had gone from a convent in Uganda to becoming a London lawyer. “I expected her to shout, but she spoke to me calmer than ever. She told me this was my last shot — either focus on music, or go about my business and throw it all away.” 

That night, Lancey took the stage like a beast and never looked back. (Rumour has it both Skepta and Travis Scott were at Visions that same night.) Gigs started rolling in at underground venues citywide, and Lancey dropped his sophomore LP ‘TEEN SKUM’ two months after ‘PINK’ while linking with artists like AJ Tracey and producers such as Nyge. 

This momentum soon carried across the pond with a call to fly out to New York and record. That move became a career game-changer. Suddenly Lancey was in studios and moving in circles with Pop Smoke, A$AP Rocky, even Kanye — at one point crossing paths with Joe Jackson. Between New York and LA, he was building connections. His beats got better and he elevated his sound. 

There were label deals on the table, but nothing felt right. Back in London in 2018, Skepta reached out. “If there was anyone I wanted to emulate in the UK, it was Skepta. That was way more significant to me than anything I’d been doing or anyone I’d met. I started going to the studio every day, jumping on each other’s music,” Lancey calls. “By 2019, I went on tour with him — we would go to any city in the world, and crowds would know all his massive songs like ‘Shutdown’ or ‘That’s Not Me’. Tons of them. I thought that was amazing, so I started developing my own creative team of producers and videographers independently, while honing in on making music.”

The same year, Lancey became one of the first UK artists to perform at Oakland hip hop festival Rolling Loud and began catching attention for his distinctive style. He modelled for streetwear brands like MISBHV, A-COLD-WALL*, and appeared at Naomi Campbell's Fashion for Relief Gala. Then closed out the year with his fifth studio album, ‘FRIEND OR FOUX’.

Not long after, Lancey signed a six-figure deal in the US with J. Erving, son of basketball legend Julius. Lancey’s adaptability to keep his ear to the ground with what was happening in London sonically and evolve his sound with exposure to US rap strains heightened his fanbase statside — though he always held on to the essence of, and his love for, the UK.

“I was and am really inspired by Nipsey Hussle. I was getting more locked on business, how to build my brand, and help the community, and I wanted to do that in the place I came up in,” Lancey says. “I’d spent a lot of time in America — people knew me as an artist, but no one really knew me.”

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Tearing out of the dystopian pandemic, with his creativity at full throttle, Lancey released two mixtapes in 2021, 'FIRST DEGREE' and 'LIFE.EVIL' - but something even more wicked was about to come. In late 2022, he released ‘LIFE IN HELL’ , a 22-track, sample-laden project fuelled by his synaesthesia and what one critic called his “Purple Reign”. The acclaimed album was aggressive and accompanied by an avant-garde live performance on Halloween by Lancey in a former New York synagogue, covered in glitter, wearing prosthetic ears and backed by demonic dancers. The album also featured bass-driven belter ‘LANCEY OR LANCEY’ - its title lyric riffing on differing UK and US accent pronunciations - his highest streaming track to date. 

Hell-bent on exploring his darker side, Lancey dropped his ‘BACK2DATRAP’ mixtape in September, 2023, featuring a grime-infused trap track with an R&B lick called ‘MMM HMM’ with Sexyy Red. In 2024, he put out a  collaborative mixtape with British rappers Fimiguerrero and Len titled ‘CONGLOMERATE’, while his fiery collab with YT, ‘Black & Tan’, landed on multiple ‘Song of the Year’ lists. 

That summer, it was ‘Brat’ summer. Having maintained a love for the club sonics and basement venues he came up in since day one, Lancey was encouraged to see an experimental popstar tip over to phenomenon status while riding a dance music-fuelled wave.

“I’ve been all around the world, but I’ve never really been on holiday. Last summer, I went to Morocco for my girlfriend’s birthday, and honestly, I had the best time of my life. Charli xcx had just put out ‘Brat’, and we were both loving it,” Lancey shares. “Charli was like a rapper and ‘Sympathy is a Knife’ is like a grime beat. But ‘Everything is Romantic’ — in particular, that song sounds like the beats I make. So I loved hearing that. When you hear an artist like that sharing the same idea or vision as you, it just kind of affirmed that I was doing the right thing. ‘Everything is Romantic’ is in my top 10 songs ever!”

Charli XCX’s ‘Brat’ mania and jaw-dropping rollout didn’t beat Lancey to the punch of his project, but it pushed him to be more sonically ambitious than ever. “I came back and I knew I had to produce a remixed ‘BLEACHED’ version of ‘THE TIME OF OUR LIVES’ myself. I started making beats and in two weeks I made the whole album, produced by me, all the vocals are by me.” 

While planning the double drop, Lancey teased his concept at the top of this year with a couple of two-pack releases, ‘Enter The Dragon / TEKTIME’ in January followed by ‘DANCE ON ME’ and synth-driven remix ‘DANCE ON ME IN THE CLUB’ in spring, amassing millions of streams.

“Production is nothing new to me, but having my name on a credit is,” Lancey explains. “I work a lot with young producers who are coming up. If we jump on a song together and I’m already rapping on it, I’d rather they get all the production credits. In a business sense, I just want these young guys to win. My name is already on the title, already on the album. I also feel like if I didn’t make the entire beat, I see myself as an assistant. ‘Rockstar Rider’ on this album is entirely produced by me, so there’s no one else I can put ahead of myself.”

When the conversation circles back to categorisation, Lancey fires up: “I’d rather people say nothing about me than try and back me into a subgenre. People always want to put a name on something, and that’s just limiting. Let’s just make music.

“If you take an artist like Beyoncé or Prince — everyone knows their songs, top to bottom, every single track — then it’s a different conversation. If you’ve heard all their output, their vocal inflections, every single detail, maybe then you can label that. But I don’t think many people have heard every single thing I’ve done. I know you’ve heard my music, but even if you’ve heard everything I’ve released, that’s only what I’ve decided you can hear. I make music every day — I have more beats and songs in the vault than I’ve ever put out. So don’t narrow me down.”

When asked to reveal the dream producers on his hit list, Lancey names Tyler, the Creator, Pharrell, Matt Martians, and more broadly, the next generation. “It sounds crazy, but I believe that the best producer I'm ever gonna work with, or I would like to, is someone I don't know yet. I think younger minds make the most innovative producers. I love working with rising producers more than anything.”

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Wanting to create opportunities for younger generations to experience and share music in real life, he’s developing a club concept to pair with his current era. “The concept for ‘THE TIME OF OUR LIVES’ and my upcoming party series CLUB BLUE is born from raving.” Lancey says. “I went to Ibiza and it was just so free. When I’m on the dancefloor in Ibiza I don’t even know where my phone is — I’m just having fun. Everyone’s feeling the same way, connecting over music.” 

People often forget, but the very first rap songs like Sugarhill Gang’s ‘Rappers Delight’ and Joe Bataan’s ‘Rap-O Clap-O’ came from disco and were spun by Larry Levan at the Paradise Garage. 

“What pushed me to start CLUB BLUE was that I’ve been to so many parties worldwide, and they're playing the same music or it’s terrible. I’ve been to London clubs that are all about who you know and how much you’re spending and there’s no vibe. It finally hit me, ‘What’s my contribution to this, how can I make it better?” Lancey says.

“I want to have a party series where artists can test out their music the way they used to,” Lancey says. “If your favourite artist just made a song in the studio and loves it, and wants you to hear it right now — where can you do that, that isn’t Instagram Live, TikTok, or some snippet that gets critiqued in the first five minutes? You can’t beat a physical reaction — a genuine facial or body reaction — to music on a dancefloor. That’s what I want. I just want people to feel something again.”

He beams. “For a lot of young rap artists today, the first thing they’ll do to test music is throw it online. That’s great, because you can get exposed to the world in an hour depending on who you are. But I want to go back to the essence of where rap started — where I started. I just want a place for expression. Somewhere people can say, ‘Yo, I’m going to CLUB BLUE because I’m gonna hear something I’ve never heard before — and that’s what I need.’ A club should be about discovery.”

“I know how I came up, and I'm not going to forget what got me here, and supporting those grassroots space,” he continues. “Because there are so many memories and so many friendships and communities built from those small rooms. Let’s not overlook what's right in front of us,  we've got to keep their essence 100% or all that authenticity will be gone.”

Lancey proved his stage prowess all summer with blistering performances at Wireless, CLOUT, Reading and Leeds for thousands. As we wrap up dinner and head out to a starry sky, Lancey’s riding high off the album finally coming towards release and a return to New York for fashion week. As we part ways, I holler back that I loved the howling electric guitar on his outro. Lancey laughs, telling me that track will never make the album — it’s reserved solely for his live shows. He’s buzzing about levelling up his performances, taking cues from frontmen like Bowie, Iggy Pop, Alice Cooper, Prince and Michael Jackson

But beyond that, what does the future hold? “I just want my music to be remembered. The music industry is so fast and furious that a Number One hit could be a hit and forgotten in two weeks. I would do this with money, without money — it doesn't matter. I just genuinely love music, and just want to see how far I can take it. What can I do with music that I haven't done before? Or I thought I would never do?”. His eyes twinkle. “I'm not trying to change the world with it, but what impact can I have? I've realised in my life,  I've helped people the most because of music. So that's what fuels my passion to keep creating. Everything good I know in my life comes from music.”

“My proudest accomplishment is still being here,” he adds. “There was so many underground artists back when I started that I couldn't see it lasting past 2017. By the time I got offered a deal, I was one of the last people in that realm. It took me a lot of time to be here now where I’m getting to perform all over the world, to have an impact, to see my influence on other artists — and it's not finished.”

Lancey Foux's new album 'THE TIME OF OUR LIVES' and remixed 'BLEACHED' version are coming soon

Buy tickets for Lancey Foux & Friends in the Mixmag Lab London here

Tracy Kawalik is a freelance music journalist, follow her on Instagram