Their biggest influence, though, is Lil Wayne. ​ “If you follow our journey we’re just doing alittle version of what he does,” says Adz. Like sipping lean? ​ “Not even just the lean. He was the first to do rap with Auto-Tune. The first to be so explicit, on that wave, with women. We don’t write lyrics down either, and he was one of the first to do that. He just kept murdering the game.” Singles [ edit ] As lead artist [ edit ] List of singles as lead artist, with selected chart positions, showing year released and album name The tour was originally nine dates, now it’s in 14 different cities. All big venues, a few thousand capacity each time… You’ ve got some big names on PTSD, too: Lil Baby, Krept & Konan, AJ Tracey, Chip. How did you decide on the features for the project?

Top Singles (Week 39, 2023)" (in French). Syndicat National de l'Édition Phonographique . Retrieved 2 October 2023. For some people, mental health is still something of a taboo subject. Did you feel any hesitation when talking about how you both visit a therapist?Adz: Bro, we don’t see our families. I’ve got a daughter, bro—I’ve got a baby mum. I could’ve worked on my relationship and took six months out of music and this and that. That’s what I’m saying. That’s what 99% of people would’ve done. This ting comes with serious sacrifices.

a b Copsey, Rob (9 July 2019). "Post Malone's Goodbyes is Number 1 on the Official Trending Chart". The Official Chart . Retrieved 17 July 2023. The two first met at Catford’s Sedgehill School and figured out their older brothers knew each other. They describe Sedgehill in disparaging tones. The school has just dragged itself out from what one paper described as a ​ “dismal” Ofsted report. When they were there adecade ago, it was still deemed ​ “inadequate”. Adz: People think we’ve got a lot of songs because, in England, there’s a low standard. Someone like Young Thug has got 15,000 songs! LB: The two people you hear speaking at the start of the tape are therapists. We both have therapists and we were trying to show the point that we both have to sit there and listen to the therapist.But it’s paying off! You guys sold out Alexandra Palace—which holds 10,000 people—twice, in the space of a few hours. That’s crazy! If there was an article listing the top 10 moments from the scene in 2019, selling out Ally Pally twice in one day would be way up there. Considering its size, PTSD is remarkably absorbing and coherent, reshaping UK trap with sharp wordplay, indelible hooks and plenty of sonic experimentation—the head-snapping rhythms of “Ain’t Chanelle”, the melodic melancholy of “Outside”, the searching self-examination of “Last Night in Barcelona”. “That’s why we withheld from even signing to a label in England, because this sound has never existed before over here in the way we’re doing it,” says Young Adz. “You can tell me the success you’ve had with this Afroswing artist or this club guy…that ain’t our music. We’re not a social experiment, like, ‘Let me just give them a bag and see if we can do it.’ We’ve got to do it, we’ve got to direct the wave.” Adz: What we do is ‘UK rap wave’ music. But what the scene does, is what the scene does. There’s other UK rap wave artists, to name the other bait two: M Huncho and Nafe Smallz. That’s another two bait wave artists. If you look at a song in 2019, what does it consist of? Even if it’s from a ‘rapper’, or an Afroswing artist or a grime MC or whatever—what does it consist of? Them singing on the chorus, their videos are a lot more animated, they look a lot more happy, they’re smiling more, they’re interacting more. That’s it! That’s what we’ve done. We’ve shifted the whole entire thing. Other rappers are talking about doing sexual acts they would never speak about before. They just talk about it now because they know it’s gonna bang.

LB: Not a lot of it was sat-down and planned. You know what it is, bro? We take a lot of energies from the universe. Sometimes you’re in the right place at the right time, and then you just get working. Like, the Lil Baby thing, we just bumped into him at Wireless; he brought us out. We got convos going and he realised that we’re real niggas. We realised he’s actually a real nigga... We don’t care who you are; we don’t actually care who you are, bro—if you aint real, it’s not gonna work. a b Powell, Jon (30 August 2022). "Young Adz drops off new visual for "Man In The Mirror" ". Revolt TV . Retrieved 17 July 2023. The album is littered with drug references: to Xanax, Percocet, weed, lean, pills. They laugh when Iask them about their drug use, insisting they’re in great shape. ​ “We’ll never stop getting high, realistically, at least not for now. It’s just about applying some other things to it. Drink some water. Go to the gym.” He pauses. ​ “Eat some food.” Adz: Yeah, shout out Rapman, and love and respect to Dave—I fully rate what he’s doing. He’s definitely a GOAT.

Adz: The first mixtape is called Home Alone. A lot of people think that was a spin off the actual movie. It wasn’t. If you’re home alone and that’s how the whole thing is set to you, then PTSD is gonna spin around from that.

Rapman directed the video for “Playing For Keeps”, which also features Dave. How did those collaborations come about?As Niro Tha DJ cues up songs such as Nookie (6.1 million views and counting), Large Amounts (12.8 million views) and nASSty (9.8 million), the pair practise on their mics with Auto-Tune and bass buzzing around the tiny room. Their stratospheric rise hasn’t been immediate. ​ “It’s just being ahead of your time, innit. Everyone’s gonna catch up eventually,” says LB. Top 100 Singles, Week Ending 29 September 2023". Official Charts Company . Retrieved 29 September 2023. Why does he think his parents weren’t able to be more present? ​ “I think smoking, alcohol, drugs have been apart of my parents’ lives. It was abig part of my upbringing. It’s easier for you to do that when you see that. [LB’s] dad smokes as much weed as him, so that’s just normal to him.” Adz is adad himself now: ​ “Growing up, every woman in my life broke my heart, so Allah gave me adaughter to learn how to love women.”