AJ Tracey - ‘Buying my mum a house will always be my proudest achievement’

Rapping phenomenon and Tottenham Hotspur superfan AJ Tracey joins us this week to talk about supporting his mum through her cancer journey, the pressures of staying an independent artist and what football has taught him about failure.

AJ Tracey has been rapping since the age of four. He dropped out of his Criminology degree at London Metropolitan University and started uploading tracks to SoundCloud in 2011, achieving five Platinum singles and over two billion Spotify plays as an independent artist. His first studio album debuted at number three in the UK Albums chart and his breakthrough hit, Ladbroke Grove, became the unofficial summer anthem of 2019.

Now, after a three-year hiatus, marked by leaked songs and pandemic delays, Tracey has just released his third album, Don't Die Before You're Dead. It’s his most vulnerable and personal work yet and as well as being a love letter to the UK, the album fuses grime, garage, and R&B with themes of trauma, mental health, faith and love.

Elizabeth and AJ answer YOUR questions in our subscriber series, Failing with Friends. Join our community of subscribers here: https://howtofail.supportingcast.fm/#content

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All episodes in June are brought to you by @arlalactoFREE - all the taste, easier to digest. Listen to our bonus episode brought to by ArlaLactoFREE with Vicky Pattison here: https://link.chtbl.com/VickyPattison

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Production & Post Production Coordinator: Eric Ryan

Mix Engineer: Matias Torres

Studio Engineer: Gulliver Tickell

Assistant Producer: Suhaar Ali

Senior Producer: Hannah Talbot

Executive Producer: Carly Maile

How to Fail is an Elizabeth Day and Sony Music Entertainment Production.

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