Stereosonic's Labrinth On His Relationship With SImon Cowell

Timothy McKenzie - aka Labrinth - now 24, grew up one of nine in the London suburb of Hackney. He started as a beatmaker, lacing Master Shortie's Dead End early on. McKenzie's major break came with Tinie's drum 'n' bass-fuelled Pass Out, elevated by his uncredited vocals – it topped the UK charts.

McKenzie contributed heavily to Tinie's Disc-Overy, masterminding the successive hits Frisky and the Ellie Goulding-chorused Wonderman. But, surprisingly, he signed as a solo artist to Simon Cowell's Syco Music – known for its talent show stars (Leona Lewis, Susan Boyle, One Direction), not 'street' acts. Indeed, Cowell recognised that 'Lab' had his own X factor. McKenzie, similarly business-minded, even secured an imprint, Odd Child Recordings. 

For Electronic Earth McKenzie mashed up grime, bass music, electro, hip hop, R&B, funk and Coldplay-mode rock, but gave it a future-pop sheen. Its biggest hit would be a sugar-sweet duet with Emeli Sandé – Beneath Your Beautiful.

"Simon is quite hands-off in terms of letting me do what I need to do,” McKenzie maintains. “But I think it's just a relationship that will grow. This was new for me, as well as it was new for Syco to be with an artist like myself. So it's going really well personally for me, 'cause their idea is very much kinda like, Let Lab go in his direction and we'll help facilitate what he needs to do – and that for me was a perfect situation to be in.

"I saw Simon the other day at a show I was doing and we had a good chat. He just said he's massively proud and he was like, You made Syco cool – which was quite funny! He's just very happy to see the work that we've done and how it's gone in terms of me growing my name in the industry. It was just really positive feedback.”

More.