Born Dylan Mills.
Dizzee Rascal, a 19-year-old east London garage MC, has won the 2003 Mercury Music Prize.
"My teachers all called me rascal," Dylan Mills has said, explaining the name Dizzee Rascal - which is now known across the country after his Mercury win.Rascal, who grew up in Bow, east London, was raised by a single mother on a council estate.He was so much of a rascal that he was excluded from every class except music and expelled four times.But he began rapping in the UK garage style - the style dominant on many inner city streets - and one teacher encouraged him to develop his musical talents.According to Rascal himself, the music stopped him drifting into crime like many others on his estate. Rascal is not ashamed to admit that money motivates him and is the latest in a line of British stars to have emerged from the urban scene. Like thousands of teenagers across the UK, he began making music in his bedroom with friends, using whatever technology he could lay his hands on.I Luv U was then given a full release, reaching number 29 in the UK chart, followed by Fix Up, Look Sharp, which went to number 17 in August. BBC Radio 1 DJ Zane Low praised the rapper for his album at the Mercury ceremony. Rascal has not escaped the violence of the UK garage scene - he has just recovered from being stabbed in the Cypriot garage resort of Ayia Napa. The incident was said to have arisen out of a squabble within the music scene on the island. But the incident has not hurt his music career, and he is now working on a new album.
