Loski | Before They Were Famous | The Legend of Harlem Spartan

Before UK rapper Loski would become one of his country’s most promising new performers, he was born Jyrelle O’Conner on May 6th, 1999 and grew-up out on Kennings Way – a brutal stretch of South London located in Kensington. As a kid, Jyrelle was a huge movie fanatic and he especially loved any film starring Adam Sandler or Chris Tucker. He’d watch those classics with his two siblings on his father’s side of the family -- a little sister and kid brother -- both of whom he’s quite close with, which is similar to the relationship he has with his parents – including his father, former Brixton rapper, Ty Nizzy. Despite having a father in the biz, Jyrelle didn’t grow-up dreaming of becoming a rapper. Instead, he initially sought out a career as a professional football player (that’s “soccer” to us uncivilized folk over here in North America). Meanwhile, his earliest creative outlet was his love for drawing which he practiced often in the hectic halls of Lilian Baylis Secondary School where his favorite classes were Religious Studies and History. Over the years however, things would change. To begin with, Jyrelle incurred an injury that put his playing days on ice and he was eventually dropped from the team. With his dreams of becoming a professional athlete now dashed, Jyrelle fell in with a bad crowd around his local neighborhood and got caught up in the trappings of the hood. Starting around 2012, Jyrelle launched his career as a performer under the moniker of Lil Nizzy -- a reference to his father -- but by the time he started taking the prospect of becoming a performer more seriously three years later, he had adopted the name of Loski -- given to him by a friend -- and joined the Kennington based crew known as the Harlem Spartans.