In April 2024, Vincenzo Camille rebranded from 9090gate to fakemink. Since then, the Essex-born rapper-producer has released around 100 singles, become the breakout star of the UK Ug movement, and topped Dazed’s best tracks of 2025 list. So despite the mounting anticipation for his first project in almost two years, fakemink’s new seven-track EP, The Boy Who Cried Terrified, arrived in characteristically unorthodox fashion.

First, mink announced his sophomore album, Terrified, in late December. Then, last week, he revealed it would become both an EP and a full album, setting the EP’s release date for January 30. But just as everything seemed locked in, 16-year-old influencer CTI claimed he’d personally called fakemink to bring the EP forward to 12 a.m. today (January 29), prompting pretty much every UK underground fan page to go live in anticipation.

The music had to be good to justify this drama – and, thankfully, it was. The Boy who cried Terrified lands amid swirling speculation as to whether mink’s new releases would sit closer to his lo-fi 2023 debut album, London’s Saviour, or the more hectic singles he’s released since. It seems that the answer is a bit of both, plus more. There are hints of “Celebrity Deathmatch”’s melancholy in “Blow the Speaker”’s wistful melodies, and “Easter Pink”’s cluttered chaos in tracks like “Dumb”, as well as an entirely new foray into singing on “Mr Chow”. 

And while the EP’s rollout might have been slightly uncoordinated, this is exactly what you would expect from the forerunner of the UK Ug scene. Collectively, artists like EsDeeKid, Feng and Zukovstheworld take foregoing musical conventions as their defining trait: genres are collapsed into a pastiche of browser-based bookmarks, mixes are shoddy and muddied by distortion, and all of this is on full display on The Boy who cried Terrified. On it, fakemink shows no qualms transplanting samples from beloved UK dubstep producer Burial and ambient guitarist Flawed Mangoes into his new world of jerk percussion and heady rap lyrics, but it results in tracks that are both pensive and overwhelming. It’s an impressive feat.  

Below, we rank our favourite tracks on the project, from worst to best (they’re all good though). 

7. “DUMB” 

Sparse, scuzzy and distorted, “Dumb” builds up to an electrifying crescendo of overlapping, pitch-shifted vocals and UK drill-inspired percussion – there’s a sense of impending doom that’s reminiscent of fellow UK Ug rapper Sinn6r. Maybe the most remarkable thing about it is how mink makes “having fun, driving in the summer”, drinking Cherry Sprite, eating gelato and getting sucked off seem so bad vibes – the song sounds less like a holiday in Marseilles and more like a descent into hell. (JG)

6. “THE MERCER”

Stacked vocal takes and subtle auto-tune are the main motif that distinguishes The Boy who cried Terrified from fakemink’s previous releases and, while this approach is wholly enjoyable, it’s in the project’s more subdued moments that it truly shines. Casting train-of-thought lyrics about “going hard” and spending lots of money over his signature, jerk-derived percussion, “The Mercer” is about as energetic as the new EP gets, but is ultimately one of its less memorable cuts. (SPM)

5. “YOUNG MILLIONAIRE”

Burying a Flawed Mangoes shoegaze sample under bombastic bass thumps, the UK Ug’s iconic record scratch sound and distant homages to Lil Wayne’s legendary mixtape run in the early 2000s, “Young Millionaire” showcases the sonic collisions that make mink’s music so captivating. Meanwhile, there’s also some minor joy to be derived from fakemink’s mimicking of Lil Wayne’s distinctive nasal delivery on the chorus – “Young millionaire, I feel like Weezy, uh.” (SPM)

4. “MILK & HONEY” 

Few artists can balance swaggering bravado and existential melancholy as well as fakemink: one minute he can make you feel like you’re on top of the world, the next like you’re a sensitive young man moping around Tokyo in the pouring rain. With its solemn synths and airy percussion, “Milk and Honey” is a strong new addition to the canon of melancholy mink, joining previous tracks like “Chinchilla”, “Shampoodle” and “Baklava”. But as is often the case with fakemink, the highs and lows exist side by side, and there is a tension between what the music sounds like and what he’s telling you. Milk and Honey’s lyrics  (“I know you wanna see me fall and never, ever win again/ Wake up, win and sleep, wake up, win again”) are as bold and defiant as ever, but there’s something brittle and uneasy below the surface. (JG)

3. “BLOW THE SPEAKER” 

While fakemink had previously announced that sophomore album Terrified would be entirely self-produced, the presence of EsDeeKid producer Wraith9’s signature “OK” beat tag in the opening moments of The Boy who cried Terrified immediately dispelled any notions that this new EP would follow suit. Still, set to a loop of ethereal string synths and featuring fakemink deliver conflicted lyrics about “running away”, “feeling alone” and “far from home”, “Blow The Speaker” is permeated by a heavy melancholy that proves to be The Boy who cried Terrified’s most enduring quality.

The track’s title is also somewhat ironic, given that, while livestreaming the new release in the early hours of this morning, fakemink received a noise complaint from his neighbour, who angrily complained that she had to be up for work at 7AM. To his credit, mink did turn down the music, but not before cursing her under his breath. (SPM)

2. “MR CHOW”

After the marathon of singles fakemink has released, you would be forgiven for thinking that you had his style all figured out, but that vocal pass in the opening seconds of “Mr Chow” changes everything. Delivered with the subtle melodicism of drill artists like Billy Billions and AbraCadabra’s forays into singing in the late 2010s, this is an approach entirely new to mink’s catalogue. Elsewhere, the track is a little busy – stacked vocal takes deliver vague affirmations of staying independent from women and record labels, and the track’s title appears to be a reference to the Florida-based Chinese takeaway chain that also features on the EP’s cover – but, damn, the singing, man. It’s just so good. (SPM)

1. “FML” 

Who would have thought that fakemink and Burial would be a match made in heaven? We’ve made it clear that we think mink is at his best when he’s in his feels and ‘lead single’ (if we can even call it that – it dropped all but three hours before the actual project itself) “fml” is a prime example. It might sound insane, but mink emerges as somewhat of a spiritual successor to Burial here: Where Burial’s barren dubstep productions soundtracked post-New Labour nihilism of early 00s Britain, mink embodies the hyper-digital ennui that permeates British gen Z experience today. On some level, he seems to be aware of this, too, because, in an apparent homage to the long-running meme that Burial is the sonic equivalent of a London night bus, mink raps: “Went from the all-black E-class, but I still miss them nights on the bus”. 

“fml” is also the only track so far from The Boy who cried Terrified to receive a music video – and, far from the low-res iPhone 5 videography of previous releases, it’s actually nice to look at. The video seems to take cues from Wong Kar-Wai’s 1995 film Fallen Angels, replete with wide-angle shots and blanket darkness. As one commenter wrote online, the budget has definitely upgraded with this one. “fml” announces fakemink’s new era in spectacular style. (SPM)