Mugun releases new EP ‘Dissident Behaviour

Credit: Jamie Walters

Today, Mugun – the Coventry-born rapper disrupting the UK rap scene from the margins – releases his new EP Dissident Behaviour. Sounds from the hardcore continuum and the DNA of rave influenced by an adolescence spent in Jamaica are dragged kicking and screaming into the future. Produced almost entirely by himself, the scope of Mugun’s vision is on a cinematic scale: the neo-noir of Sin City in an unfamiliar landscape, met with the feeling of childhood enchantment we feel as the star crests over the Disney castle. This is an artist fluent in UK hip-hop with a pop star’s cultural ambition.

To celebrate its release, Mugun drops new single ‘She Wah Move’. While the EP is an emotional journey and his most personal work to date, the track is a floor-filler precision engineered to ignite the crowd: “When I made ‘She Wah Move’ the purpose was to give the opposite feeling to what had been delivered so far on Dissident Behaviour. For most of the tape, the goal was to connect those who get hit by the same kind of emotions I do when listening to certain songs – but with ‘She Wah Move’, I made it to make people want to go out, make people want to dance, make people act on impulse and say, ‘At least I enjoyed myself’. ‘She Wah Move is supposed to make you call your friend and say, “Forget what you’re talking about, we’re going out tonight.”

It follows on from forerunning track ‘Searching For Truth’, a statement of intent that Dissident Behaviour marks Mugun shifting into a new gear, aware and fully in command of his gifts. It’s his most personal project to date, navigating his experience of outsiderdom, grief at the loss of his sister and aspiring for more than the circumstances you were born into. ‘Journey’ is a love story narrated on the run, with survival game urgency and a dance-driven beat. Mugun imagined the island paradise of Danny Boyle’s 2000 classic The Beach as he was writing it.

Mugun shares his vision for Dissident Behaviour: “I just wanted to make something that I thought would appeal to my younger self. Something mixed with all the beauty behind the chaos I was around, something I knew would’ve hit me while I’m with my friends at some house party, or alone on a rooftop watching the ambience. I made this for the kids of the night”.

A skater and anime enthusiast with a personal style which borders on cyberpunk, Mugun has always been an outsider in his hometown. His 2023 EP Walking Street announced an artist whose floor-filling instincts, Jamaican patois and collision of unlikely worlds in his lyrics is altogether peerless.

Dissident Behaviour marks a new era for Mugun who is working, more than ever, at the peak of his powers.