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.