Appearances can be deceiving. When Jordan Stephens first emerged onto the musical landscape 13 years ago with Rizzle Kicks , a pop-rap duo who resembled cartoon characters, the assumption was that Stephens, then 19, was having the time of his life, every day of his life. But as his new memoir reveals, there was much hidden behind the inane grin.
His intentions here are nothing less than to come clean, to peel back the mask and reveal the lurking grimace. Stephens grew up in London and Brighton, the mixed-race son of two people whose relationship soon foundered. He saw his father occasionally, and while he was close to his mother, she had her own life issues to deal with.
Creative at school, he nevertheless struggled to focus, and forever wanted attention. Pop music was, at least initially, the perfect arena for him, but fame and money soon went to his head, as fame and money have a habit of doing. Success made him reckless.
Popular with the opposite sex, he was carefree but also care less, a philanderer, unreliable, flaky. When in his book he recounts telling one girlfriend “I think I’m polyamorous ”, he’s shocked that she “freaked out”. When another leaves him after he cheats on her, he convinces himself that she’s the love of his life, and so crashes into an obliterating depression, a junkie craving the very thing he’s being denied.
Much of the narrative here charts his stalker-ish attempts to win her back. One day he finds himself cycling to her house. “I.