Category Wiley - page 1

Richard Kylea Cowie (born 19 January 1979), better known by his stage name Wiley is a British Grime producer and MC, one of if not the founding member of the Roll Deep Crew and producer of Trinidadian and Antiguan descent from Bow, East London. He is known to be an incredibly versatile artist, with his beginnings as a Drum & Bass MC, to his rather unwelcome stay in UK Garage and his most prolific and well known journey, as a the founding father of Grime music. He has released several albums, both as a solo artist and as part of groups, including Roll Deep and Pay As U Go. Wiley also has two clothing ranges in addition to his music. The performer announced his retirement in 2007 but quickly ended it to continue recording. Wiley has pioneered the Grime subgenre of UK Garage, as both a record producer and an MC, though he sometimes refers to his music as "Eski" short for Eskimo. Wiley releases all of his mixtapes under the name "Eskiboy". He explained his choice of name for his music and the continuing theme in his song and album titles such as Treddin' on Thin Ice, partly because he likes the wintertime, but mainly meaning cold in spirit. Wiley was quoted in conjunction with his "cold" theme: "Sometimes I just feel cold hearted. I felt cold at that time, towards my family, towards everyone. That's why I used those names."Many of Wiley's early vinyl releases, such as Eskimo, were released under the alias "Wiley Kat", this name was derived from a character in the cartoon Thundercats. However the 'Kat' is never officially used by Wiley anymore, only mentioned loosely in some of his songs.