Queen Millz: “Getting kicked out of school changed my life”

On ​‘Of Course ft. Scorcher’, the latest single from Queen Millz​’s upcoming mixtape OUTSIDE THE BOX, the Leicester wordsmith opens with bravado. With virtually no introduction, she instantly launches into verse over a mutant drill-slash-baile-funk beat.

“Check the score / Champion status, you still want more? / When I wanna stop banging on that door / I’m fresh of course, I’m blessed of course” she spits.

It’s fitting confidence for a rapper that has had to carry it throughout her fledgling career, as a woman MC from Leicester, carving her own path as an independent artist away from the traditional centres of UK rap. And given she’s sharing the mic with one of grime’s all time greats in Scorcher, there’s a feeling that the baton’s being passed along. He’s not the only one either – OUTSIDE THE BOX also features appearances from Big Narstie and Ashley Walters.

With the sky looking up, we wanted to find out about the forces that shaped Queen Millz, so we asked her: ​“What Made You?”

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At school, I hated it. I hated school so much. I didn’t get on with my teachers, and I didn’t like being told what to do. I was always into after-school clubs and extracurricular things, though. My dad was always getting me involved in that kind of stuff, and I was really good at poetry and writing stories. My imagination was always there.

I ended up being kicked out of high school just before the summer holidays, and it literally changed my whole life. My mum worked full-time and my dad stayed at home with us, so he said, ​“Yeah, you ain’t having a summer holiday.”

He found a poetry workshop at 2Funky Record Shop, before it became a whole empire. Back then, it was just a record shop doing a poetry workshop, and he enrolled me in it. I was really annoyed. I didn’t want to miss out on my summer holiday to go to some poetry class.

But when I got there, I realised quite quickly that it was actually really cool. There were loads of older people who felt different from anyone I had met before, and they were all rappers. Hardly any of them just did poetry. It was a whole rap thing.

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I started writing over beats and turning my spoken-word pieces into raps. It opened my eyes to how you could structure a song or a poem. As part of the workshop, there was a poetry competition. I entered against loads of adults and won, probably because I did a backflip on stage, to be honest.

I won £100 and bought my first iPod Touch. From that moment, I thought, I could do this all the time.

I started going to more of their workshops and showcases. I performed at Curve Theatre when I was really young and did breakdancing and dance workshops with them too. I got completely into performing arts.

When I went back to school, I did drama and every talent show I could. I would be on stage rapping, body popping and breakdancing. I got bullied for it. No one in my class thought I was cool; they all thought I was weird. But I loved it, so I didn’t care.

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When it came to choosing what to do at college, everyone around me was picking textiles, health and social care and things like that. I wasn’t into any of it. It still felt like academic stuff that I didn’t want to do. Then I found a performing arts college where you danced all day, sang, performed onstage and auditioned for things, so I joined dance college.

I studied there for three years and got my Level 3 diploma in performing arts, which was really lit. I’m proud that I got through it because it was tough. The competition, the weird energy between dancers and teachers and the way some teachers would speak to you made it a real challenge for me. Not because I wasn’t good at dancing, but because of how people were treated. I don’t tend to stand for much badmouth.

While I was there, I started releasing music on social media. I would post little videos and remixes, and I was really into grime. People were sending for me, so I was going back and forth doing rap battles and clashes. That was when I really started getting into my music.

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After dance college, I went to a small music university in Leicester and, again, I hated it. By then, I already had so much experience in music that I didn’t really want to be told what to do by anyone.

Around that time, I met my manager through social media. He was from London and started bringing me down there, linking me with producers, artists and people in the industry. I dropped out of university very quickly after meeting him, and we had a really good run together.

Now I’m completely independent, fending for myself in this cruel world, thinking outside the box. I’m still really hungry and still dedicated to my craft.

Getting kicked out of school felt like a punishment at the time. But if it hadn’t happened, my dad wouldn’t have sent me to that workshop. I might never have found that room full of rappers or realised that the poetry and stories already inside me could become music.

OUTSIDE THE BOX by Queen Millz is out Friday, September 25.

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