Making tracks in a blacked-out bedroom, the precocious UK rapper has an adrenaline-fuelled, overstimulated aesthetic
From London
Recommended if you like Nettspend, Bladee, Crystal Castles
Up next New album coming early 2026Twenty-year-old London rapper Vincenzo Camille, better known as Fakemink, makes disorienting sugar-high electroclash rap, delivered with a voice that sounds like it’s barely broken. On paper, it sounds as if he should be of a piece with the 2020s class of overstimulating Gen Z internet rappers such as Nettspend and OsamaSon. But although he is, in some sense, part of that scene, his music is also far more linear and melodic, and more indebted to the past. His best songs, many of which were produced by the American electronic duo Suzy Sheer, utilise beats that sound like fast, euphoric flips of songs from the Skins soundtrack; the viral hit Easter Pink could pass for a mid-2000s indie dance hit if not for Fakemink’s fast, very 2020s rapping, while Makka, a collab with Mechatok and Ecco2k, contains echoes of Bloc Party’s Intimacy, thanks to an insistent, extremely melodic guitar line.
Drake recently brought him on stage at Wireless in London, and he’s beginning to play more headline shows, but not much is known about Fakemink. He seems like a true character, making his music in a blacked-out bedroom decorated with candles and stuffed toys; he is Muslim and doesn’t drink, but songs like Makka would suggest he’s partial to cough syrup and cocaine; he is deeply inspired by the creative philosophy of Alexander McQueen. It’s this combination of adrenaline-rush pop and outsized quirkiness that’s behind Fakemink’s rise. Shaad D’Souza
