A drill rapper turned TikTok wildlife presenter hopes to «bridge the gap» between young people and climate change.
Growing up in Ladbroke Grove, west London, former music star TY was stabbed four times. He had fallen «into nonsense», he says, but he always wanted something different for his life.
Wildlife and the environment are his real passions. Nowadays, you are more likely to see TY with a boa constrictor clamping on to his arm in the Amazon, or letting a tarantula crawl across his hands.
He tells Sky News he wants to help people «understand the severity of the planet right now», but the route to his new calling hasn’t exactly been a straightforward path.
«I never had purpose,» the rapper explains. «Three or four years ago, I would not have seen myself in this light… As I fell into wildlife, I found myself again.»
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Sky News’ Katie Spencer braves holding a snake
Collaborations with US wildlife enthusiast Garrett Galvin – aka fishingarrett, one of the biggest wildlife content creators in the world – have certainly helped when it comes to amassing a growing following on social media as TYfromtheWyld.
But TY already had a substantial number of fans from his days as a platinum-selling drill rapper, having found fame as a member of the pioneering rap collective CGM (formerly known as 1011).
Alongside rapper Digga D, he made headlines when police caught the pair and three others in possession of machetes and baseball bats in 2017.
They ended up being given one of the UK’s very first music criminal behaviour orders, with the police arguing their songs incited violence – a move which triggered a debate about art censorship.
‘I never saw anyone that looked and thought like me’
«It’s a rough area, Ladbroke Grove, where I’m from,» says TY. «Crime started happening, I started getting into nonsense on the roads and as a young kid growing up you can get easily influenced by some stuff, so I kind of was lost for a while.
«Music was never my passion, I just fell into it. I grew up watching [TV naturalists and conservationists] Steve Backshall, Steve Irwin, but that world was so distant for me. I never saw anyone that looked and thought like me.
«Now I want to represent and be an inspiration for young people.»
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Pic: @tyfromthewyld
Rapper AJ Tracey, who grew up in the same area of London as TY, says people need to understand that it’s all too easy to drift down the wrong…
