Headie One

Raised on the Broadwater Farm estate in Tottenham, Irving Adjei (born on 6 October 1994), aka Headie One, was an avid footballer in his youth and picked up the nickname Headie from his cousins. He first began rapping and making diss tracks at 13 under the name Headz, but he started getting into trouble when he left school and ended up serving sentences for drug dealing offences. He was also a crew member of Star Gang and OFB, who made mixtapes and posted online videos in 2010, but it wasn’t until he was released from prison for the third time that he began taking music more seriously. As Stormzy was busy taking grime into the mainstream, Headie One and his long-time friend Young RV offered more eerie, nihilistic tales of their lives on the mixtapes Sticks & Stones in 2016 and Drillers and Trappers in 2017. With knife crime and gang culture on the rise in London, politicians, police officials and tabloid newspapers blamed drill music for inspiring the wave of violence. Video streaming platforms began removing videos, shows were shut down and record companies steered clear of the scene. Footage of Headie One being attacked by a gang also added to his notorious reputation, but he responded with the mixtape The One (2018) and his underground anthem, “Know Better,” which offered a disdainful, unflustered brush-off of the incident. His follow-up The One Two (2018) featured collaborations with Abra Cadabra, and was quickly recognised as a classic of the genre. Preceded by the icy, football-themed verbal duel “Match Day,” the mixtape Drillers x Trappers II (2019) featured guest appearances from DigDat, Unknown T, and Kojo Funds. Almost five months later, Headie One dropped the ambitious Music x Road, which featured guest appearances by Dave, Skepta, and Stefflon Don, and climbed to Number 5 on the UK Albums Chart propelled by the Top 10 single “18Hunna.” In the wake of the new decade, the MC teamed up with Fred Again for the collaborative mixtape GANG and released the star-studded Edna, his highly-anticipated studio debut. A blockbuster in its own right, the album went straight to Number 1 on the UK Albums Chart aided by the singles “Ain’t It Different,” featuring AJ Tracey and Stormzy, and the Drake collaboration “Only You Freestyle,” reaching Number 2 and 5 on the UK Singles Chart, respectively. A deluxe edition came out in 2021 and included the additional tracks “Bussdown,” featuring Rich the Kid and “Siberia,” a collaborative effort with Nigerian singer and rapper Burna Boy that climbed to Number 35 in the UK. 2021 also saw the release of a new mixtape, Too Loyal for My Own Good, which made it into the charts in Ireland and the UK while he struck Number 4 in the UK for his collaborative mixtape with K-Trap, Strength to Strength, in 2023. In May of that year, he marked a landmark one million UK streams in his career with the Brits Billion Award presented by the British Phonographic Industry. Headie One dropped his second studio album The Last One in June 2024, enlisting Stormzy and Tay Keith as guest artists and tapping Tay Keith, M1OnTheBeat, Pooh Beatz and Tommy Parker as producers.

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