Meet TY From The Wyld – a former drill rapper turned conservation star
A drill rapper turned TikTok wildlife presenter hopes to “bridge the gap” between young people and climate change.
Growing up in Ladbroke Grove, west London, former music star TY was stabbed four times. He had fallen “into nonsense”, he says, but he always wanted something different for his life.
Wildlife and the environment are his real passions. Nowadays, you are more likely to see TY with a boa constrictor clamping on to his arm in the Amazon, or letting a tarantula crawl across his hands.
He tells Sky News he wants to help people “understand the severity of the planet right now”, but the route to his new calling hasn’t exactly been a straightforward path.
“I never had purpose,” the rapper explains. “Three or four years ago, I would not have seen myself in this light… As I fell into wildlife, I found myself again.”
Sky News’ Katie Spencer braves holding a snake
Collaborations with US wildlife enthusiast Garrett Galvin – aka fishingarrett, one of the biggest wildlife content creators in the world – have certainly helped when it comes to amassing a growing following on social media as TYfromtheWyld.
But TY already had a substantial number of fans from his days as a platinum-selling drill rapper, having found fame as a member of the pioneering rap collective CGM (formerly known as 1011).
Alongside rapper Digga D, he made headlines when police caught the pair and three others in possession of machetes and baseball bats in 2017.
They ended up being given one of the UK’s very first music criminal behaviour orders, with the police arguing their songs incited violence – a move which triggered a debate about art censorship.
‘I never saw anyone that looked and thought like me’
“It’s a rough area, Ladbroke Grove, where I’m from,” says TY. “Crime started happening, I started getting into nonsense on the roads and as a young kid growing up you can get easily influenced by some stuff, so I kind of was lost for a while.
“Music was never my passion, I just fell into it. I grew up watching [TV naturalists and conservationists] Steve Backshall, Steve Irwin, but that world was so distant for me. I never saw anyone that looked and thought like me.
“Now I want to represent and be an inspiration for young people.”
Pic: @tyfromthewyld
Rapper AJ Tracey, who grew up in the same area of London as TY, says people need to understand that it’s all too easy to drift down the wrong path.
“What a lot of people don’t realise is that people aren’t choosing to be in the situation that they are… anyone who wants to change their life and do something positive 100% deserves a second chance, honestly, probably even a third or fourth chance, because we’re all humans and we make mistakes.”
Just don’t expect Tracey to be making an appearance in any of TY’s videos anytime soon.
“He’s with some dangerous animals,” he laughs. “I don’t know about that, I’m scared!”
Pic: @tyfromthewyld
On a more serious note, Tracey says successive British governments could learn from TY’s skills at engaging with young people.
“I feel like when the country’s making budget cuts, it’s the youth that miss out all the time… the people in power have got to really pull some things together.”
While there might not seem an obvious crossover between drill music and learning about the ecosystem, TY’s success clearly demonstrates that an audience is there.
“We’re not doing enough to help,” he says. “This is my mission, to save animals, save the world, and get as many people on board as I can.
“Maybe a guy like me, from a certain background, will just kick a lot of people up to just say, ‘Yo. He’s doing something’.”
Entertainment
Harvey Weinstein accuser says film mogul ‘took her soul’ during alleged sexual assault
An ex-model has tearfully told a court that being sexually assaulted by Harvey Weinstein when she was 16 was the most “horrifying thing I ever experienced” to that point.
Warning: This article contains references to sexual assault
Kaja Sokola told the film producer’s retrial that he ordered her to remove her blouse, put his hand in her underwear, and made her touch his genitals.
She said he’d stared at her in the mirror with “black and scary” eyes and told her to stay quiet about the alleged assault in a Manhattan hotel in 2002.
Ms Sokola told the New York court that Weinstein had dropped names such as Penelope Cruz and Gwyneth Paltrow, and said he could help fulfil her Hollywood dream.
“I’d never been in a situation like this,” said Polish-born Ms Sokola. “I felt stupid and ashamed and like it’s my fault for putting myself in this position.”
Weinstein denies sexually assaulting anyone and is back in court for a retrial after his conviction was overturned last year.
Read more: Weinstein is back in court – but what has happened to the #MeToo movement since 2017?
Weinstein denies the allegations. Pic: Reuters
The 73-year-old is not charged over the alleged sexual assault because it happened too long ago to bring criminal charges.
However, he is facing charges over an incident four years later when he’s said to have forced Ms Sokola to perform oral sex on him.
Prosecutors claim it happened after Weinstein arranged for her to be an extra in a film.
“My soul was removed from me,” she told the court of the alleged 2006 assault, describing how she tried to push Weinstein away but that he held her down.
Read more from Sky News:
Bargain Hunt expert charged as part of police investigation into terrorist financing
Attenborough’s Ocean film is ‘biggest message he’s ever told’
Ms Sokola – who’s waived her right to anonymity – is the second of three women to testify and the only one who wasn’t part of the first trial in 2020.
Miriam Haley testified previously in the retrial. Pic: AP
Miriam Haley last week told the court that Weinstein forced oral sex on her in 2006. The other accuser, Jessica Mann, is yet to appear.
Claims against the film mogul were a major driver for the #MeToo movement against sexual harassment and abuse in 2017.
Weinstein’s lawyers allege the women consented to sexual activity in the hope of getting film and TV work and that they stayed in contact with him for a while afterwards.
Entertainment
Ochuko Ojiri: Bargain Hunt expert charged as part of police investigation into terrorist financing
Entertainment
Man accused of harassing Jennifer Aniston for two years before crashing car through gates of her home
-
Sports3 years ago‘Storybook stuff’: Inside the night Bryce Harper sent the Phillies to the World Series
-
Sports1 year agoStory injured on diving stop, exits Red Sox game
-
Sports2 years agoGame 1 of WS least-watched in recorded history
-
Sports2 years agoMLB Rank 2023: Ranking baseball’s top 100 players
-
Sports4 years ago
Team Europe easily wins 4th straight Laver Cup
-
Environment2 years agoJapan and South Korea have a lot at stake in a free and open South China Sea
-
Environment2 years agoGame-changing Lectric XPedition launched as affordable electric cargo bike
-
Business3 years agoBank of England’s extraordinary response to government policy is almost unthinkable | Ed Conway