Muhammad Mumith Ahmed (; born 18 January 1984), known professionally as Mumzy Stranger or his producing name SP (an abbreviation of Stranger Productions), is a British rapper, singer, songwriter and record producer. He made his mainstream recording debut in the summer of 2009 with his debut single "One More Dance" along with follow-up single, "Showgirl". The following year, he released Fly with Me which is the lead single from his debut album, '' Journey Begins''. He is the first artist of

Bangladeshi Bangladeshis ( ) are the citizens and nationals of Bangladesh, a South Asian country centred on the transnational historical region of Bengal along the Bay of Bengal, eponymous bay. Bangladeshi nationality law, Bangladeshi citizenship was fo ...

descent to have entered the mainstream music industry and still remains one of the latest prospects of British-Asian R&B artists in Britain. He sings in a unique style combining

reggae Reggae () is a music genre that originated in Jamaica during the late 1960s. The term also denotes the modern popular music of Jamaica and its Jamaican diaspora, diaspora. A 1968 single by Toots and the Maytals, "Do the Reggay", was the first ...

dancehall Dancehall is a genre of Jamaican popular music that originated in the late 1970s. Initially, dancehall was a more sparse version of reggae than the roots reggae, roots style, which had dominated much of the 1970s.Barrow, Steve & Dalton, Peter (2 ...

, R&B and

soul The soul is the purported Mind–body dualism, immaterial aspect or essence of a Outline of life forms, living being. It is typically believed to be Immortality, immortal and to exist apart from the material world. The three main theories that ...

, and in different languages including English, Bengali, Punjabi,

Hindi Modern Standard Hindi (, ), commonly referred to as Hindi, is the Standard language, standardised variety of the Hindustani language written in the Devanagari script. It is an official language of India, official language of the Government ...

and

Arabic Arabic (, , or , ) is a Central Semitic languages, Central Semitic language of the Afroasiatic languages, Afroasiatic language family spoken primarily in the Arab world. The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) assigns lang ...

Early life

Mumzy was born in Plaistow,

Newham The London Borough of Newham () is a London boroughs, London borough created in 1965 by the London Government Act 1963. It covers an area previously administered by the Essex county boroughs of County Borough of West Ham, West Ham and County ...

East London East London is the part of London, England, east of the ancient City of London and north of the River Thames as it begins to widen. East London developed as London Docklands, London's docklands and the primary industrial centre. The expansion of ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

on 18 January 1984 to Bangladeshi Muslim parents. He is of Bengali origin and was raised in a traditional Islamic home. He is the second youngest of six in his family. In 2000, Mumzy started out in the

UK garage UK garage, abbreviated as UKG, is a genre of electronic dance music which originated in England in the early to mid-1990s. The genre was most clearly inspired by garage house and jungle production methods, but also incorporates elements from ...

scene at the age of 16, and was involved in

pirate radio Pirate radio is a radio station that broadcasts without a valid license, whether an invalid license or no license at all. In some cases, radio stations are considered legal where the signal is transmitted, but illegal where the signals are rec ...

until 2003 when he left as he felt like a stranger (from which he derived his stage name).

Career

2005–08: Humble beginnings

Mumzy was one of three finalists in

BBC Asian Network BBC Asian Network is a British digital radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station's target audience is people "with an interest in British Asian lifestyles", especially those between the ages of 18 and 34. The station has produc ...

's ''Unsung'' competition in 2005 with his song "Jump Up", after a friend of his submitted his demo tape, which caught the attention of Rishi Rich, a Bhangra-fusion producer who was also one of the judges for the competition. Although he did not win, Mumzy kept in touch with Rishi who would comment on his potential. Two years later, as a graduate from the

University of Westminster The University of Westminster is a public university, public university based in London, United Kingdom. Founded in 1838 as the Royal Polytechnic Institution, it was the first Polytechnic (United Kingdom), polytechnic to open in London. The Po ...

, achieving a BA (Hons) in Business Information Technology, and as Rishi Rich's protègè, he released his promo singles, "Let's Party" and "Stranger" as part of the extended play, titled ''Rishi Rich Productions Presents: The EP'' which features four tracks in collaboration with H-Dhami and Rishi serving as the producer. He performed for the UK Asian Music Awards, held at

Royal Festival Hall The Royal Festival Hall is a 2,700-seat concert, dance and talks venue within Southbank Centre in London, England. It is situated on the South Bank of the River Thames, not far from Hungerford Bridge, in the London Borough of Lambeth. It is a G ...

and at the

Boishakhi Mela The Boishakhi Mela () is a Bengali culture, Bengali celebration (mela) which takes place outside of Bangladesh. It is celebrated by the Bangladeshi diaspora in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada as well as many other countries with sig ...

, a concert of

musicians; performing almost annually in both.

2009: Debut single and collaborations

Mumzy's debut single "One More Dance" was produced by Rishi Rich and was released in July 2009. The single was set to be titled "One More Chance" but was later changed to "One More Dance", according to Rishi Rich. His second single, "Showgirl", was released in August 2009. Mumzy is featured on two tracks on ''The Streets of Bollywood 3'', a remix album by Rishi Rich, Hunterz and Kami K which mainly focuses on bringing Indian and urban music together. Mumzy collaborated with several UK and internationally recognised desi artists, such as H-Dhami, Preeya Kalidas, Abbas Hasan and Malkit Singh. On 18 November 2010, Ahmed supported Sean Kingston at

The O2 Arena The O2 Arena, commonly known as The O2, is a multi-purpose indoor arena in the centre of The O2 entertainment district on the Greenwich Peninsula in southeast London, England. It opened in its present form in 2007. It has the third-highest seat ...

2010: Debut mixtape and album released

Mumzy released his debut mixtape, ''No Stranger to This'', which was put together in the course of seven days and officially released on 11 December, a day before his debut album, '' Journey Begins''. Mumzy and Stereo Nation are featured on the soundtrack of '' It's a Wonderful Afterlife''. The track is a remix of a hit song by Stereo Nation, "Larl Larl Buleeya". The track is Stranger's debut on a British film soundtrack. He is also featured on the soundtrack of '' Toonpur Ka Super Hero'', making his debut on a Bollywood film soundtrack. In December 2010, Mumzy's debut album was ''Journey Begins'' released on in the UK. Stranger performed songs from the album with a live orchestra to 600 fans and media at a one-off concert on 18 December at Stratford Circus in Stratford, London. The album's lead single is "Fly With Me", produced by himself at his home studio. The single debuted at number 15 on the UK Asian Download Chart and stayed in the top 40 for more than 17 weeks but dropped off the chart at week 18. There are several remixes of "Fly With Me", a Grime Mix featuring Flo Dan, Gods Gift, KID & Roly; a Rishi Rich Kulcha Mix and a Bangla Mix featuring SH8S. Stranger's fourth and final single from the album is "Spaceman" featuring Wiley produced by chart topping producer Steel Banglez.

2011–12: Award nominations and Stranger Family

At the UK Asian Music Awards' Nominations Party held at the West Midlands' super-club Gatecrasher, in Birmingham on 1 February, Mumzy was nominated for 4 awards, Best Album (''Journey Begins''), Best Male Act, Best Urban Act and Best Video (''Fly With Me''); the most for any solo act at the UK Asian Music Awards 2011. He ended up winning Best Urban Act. After the release of his debut album, he released his new promotional single titled "Mama Used to Say", a collaboration with Grammy-Award winning British R&B singer, Junior, which was released on 10 March. Stranger performed the single at the UK AMA with Junior. On 8 April 2011, Mumzy's single "Heartbreaker" was released as a free download. Much like his mentor Rishi Rich, Mumzy collaborated with his new protègè and the first addition to the Stranger Family, Junai Kaden, on the track "Aaja Mere Naal". The track is Junai Kaden's debut single and produced by Mumzy himself. The single was released on 14 April 2011 and entered the UK Asian Download Chart at no. 7, making it his very first top 10 single. In 2012, Mumzy officially launched Stranger Family, a music collective with Junai Kaden, Char Avell, Tasha Tah and Ramee. The group released their debut single, "Ghetto Refix" in 2012, which was a new version of Kaden's track "Ghetto" from his album ''From Me to You''. In November 2012, Stranger Family was scheduled to tour the UK alongside Canadian-South Asian group Culture Shock in the XOXO Tour, with the two groups even collaborating on a single, "XOXO", for promotion of the tour. However, due to poor ticket sales and issues regarding managing from Tiffin Beats Records, the tour was cancelled and would eventually lead to the breaking up of the Stranger Family.

2013–17: Independent success

Mumzy is the featured artist on Nafees' song titled "Sazaa", which went to number 1 on The Official Asian Download Chart in its first week of release, the song was written by Yazz Nasir. He has also been to India with Tasha Tah to feature in a song called "Kurbaan". The track was made before, but the song was remade for

Bollywood Hindi cinema, popularly known as Bollywood and formerly as Bombay cinema, is primarily produced in Mumbai. The popular term Bollywood is a portmanteau of "Bombay" (former name of Mumbai) and "Cinema of the United States, Hollywood". The in ...

and the video has been shown on B4U Music. In 2015, as a crossover collaboration between the UK and the U.S., Mumzy featured on two promotional tracks with Adam Saleh and Sheikh Akbar (formerly known as TrueStoryASA), titled Diamond Girl and the other (without Sheikh Akbar), titled Tomorrow's Another Day. After leaving his previous label, Tiffin Beats Records, Mumzy released a new record, "Love Comfort", as part of his new label he created, Timeless London. Similar to how Mumzy launched artists as part of his Stranger Family collective in 2012, Mumzy began launching new artists with his comeback with "Love Comfort". "Love Comfort" featured himself and a new female artist he signed, Shayma, and was produced by Lyan Roze, a producer signed to Timeless London who would go on to produce many of Mumzy's future singles. Mumzy then signed Rupika Vaidya, a Sweden-based singer, and was a featured artist on her debut single, "Karle Manmani" in 2015. In 2016, Mumzy signed Nish, who featured in the Bangla Refix of Ahmed's single "Jaan Atki", which was produced by Lyan Roze and would go on to become No. 1 on the UK

ITunes iTunes is a media player, media library, and mobile device management (MDM) utility developed by Apple. It is used to purchase, play, download and organize digital multimedia on personal computers running the macOS and Windows operating s ...

World The world is the totality of entities, the whole of reality, or everything that Existence, exists. The nature of the world has been conceptualized differently in different fields. Some conceptions see the world as unique, while others talk ...

Chart. In late 2015, Mumzy Stranger featured in Iksy's parody music video alongside '' Corner Shop Show'', Humza Arshad, Bengali Blitz, Puremovements and Char Avell.

2018–present: ''Vertigo'' and new projects

In March 2018, he featured in Humza Arshad's parody of the viral Nike advertisement, known as "Nothing Beats A Londoner", featuring notable Londoners from underrepresented minorities such as Juggy D, H-Dhami, Tasha Tah, Sevaqk, Bobby Friction, Raxstar, Tez Ilyas, Arjun, Steel Banglez, Char Avell, Jay Sean, Corner Shop Show ( Islah Abdur-Rahman, Michael Truong, Can Snatchy Kabadayi) and Naughty Boy. Mumzy Stranger was featured on Dutch-Pakistani F1rstman's collaborative single "Dance" alongside fellow UK South Asian artists Raxstar, H-Dhami & Juggy D. The single, described as starting a "global desi movement", became successful and would go on to feature on

Spotify Spotify (; ) is a List of companies of Sweden, Swedish Music streaming service, audio streaming and media service provider founded on 23 April 2006 by Daniel Ek and Martin Lorentzon. , it is one of the largest providers of music streaming services ...

's Global X playlist and win Best Collaboration at the 2019 BritAsia TV Music Awards. The five would also later release a remix featuring Arjun to coincide with the

2019 Cricket World Cup The 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup was the 12th Cricket World Cup, a quadrennial One Day International (ODI) cricket tournament contested by men's national teams and organised by the International Cricket Council (ICC). The tournament was hosted bet ...

with new lyrics to match the cricket theme. Mumzy featured on Nish's debut album ''Identity'', co-producing and singing on the lead single "Love Lost" and producing the song "Maa Baba". After ''Identity'', Mumzy was featured on Master-D's summer single "Tumi Jaio Na", both of which are considered part of an "urban Bangla movement". On 18 October 2019, Mumzy released his second studio album, ''Vertigo''. The album, with

hip hop Hip-hop or hip hop (originally disco rap) is a popular music genre that emerged in the early 1970s from the African-American community of New York City. The style is characterized by its synthesis of a wide range of musical techniques. Hip- ...

and R&B songs in multiple languages, features Mumzy's previous collaborators Nish, Raxstar, Arjun, F1rstman, and Lyan as well as J Riley, Snap Capone, Corleone and Inkra Dabelle. In 2020, Mumzy Stranger was featured on "Gallan Kardi", a remix of Jazzy B's hit song "Dil Luteya", from the

film '' Jawaani Jaaneman''. In July 2020, Mumzy's 'Habibti' reached #4 on the Billboard 'Top Triller Global' list.

Charity work

Mumzy is an ambassador for Newham Council's anti-violence campaign to prevent gun and knife crime. On 29 August 2010, Mumzy took part in the Sky Ride Leicester, a free, family-orientated and fun traffic-free mass participation cycling event in

Leicester Leicester ( ) is a city status in the United Kingdom, city, Unitary authorities of England, unitary authority area, and the county town of Leicestershire in the East Midlands of England. It is the largest city in the East Midlands with a popula ...

, England. For

Ramadan Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar. It is observed by Muslims worldwide as a month of fasting (''Fasting in Islam, sawm''), communal prayer (salah), reflection, and community. It is also the month in which the Quran is believed ...

2018, Mumzy took part in Barnardo's FastForADay campaign.

Awards and nominations

Discography

Albums

Mixtapes

* ''MixTape'' (DesiDrop.com exclusive, collection of Mumzy's promo songs) (2008) * ''No Stranger to This'' (hosted by DJ Limelight) (2010) * ''Now Or Never'' (mini mixtape, co-produced with JUSZONIN) (February 2015) *''7even'' (co-produced with JUSZONIN) (2016)

Extended plays

* ''Rishi Rich Productions Presents: The EP'' (with H-Dhami) (2008) * ''5 Reasons'' (2020)

Videography

Music videos

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Mumzy Stranger 1984 births Living people Bengali musicians 21st-century Bangladeshi musicians Bangladeshi male musicians Bangladeshi songwriters Bangladeshi composers Bangladeshi lyricists English Muslims English people of Bangladeshi descent English pop singers English male singer-songwriters English singer-songwriters English record producers Desi musicians Singers from the London Borough of Newham People from Plaistow, Newham Alumni of the University of Westminster 21st-century English singers 21st-century British male singers