In March of this year, we published fakemink’s first-ever Dazed cover story. Meeting the UK Ug paragon in a high-end sushi restaurant and closing with him greeting fans in the doorway of Selfridges, the interview was a sprawling, two-and-a-half-hour conversation that saw mink play me early demos of his upcoming album, Terrified, and explain some of its themes. Sadly, due to the word constraints of print media, much of the conversation was left buried on my hard drive… until now.  

His first full-length project since the slow burn album London’s Saviour dropped back in 2023, and his first since exploding in popularity at the start of 2025, Terrified has been highly anticipated ever since cryptic hints first started popping up on his Instagram captions towards the end of last year. Even two days out from the release date, however, very little is known about the album. In our cover story, mink describes Terrified as “lo-fi hip-hop if it was played on the radio” and hinted that the project will follow an eerie, horror narrative set in a “cold mansion in LA” – complete with a short story written by his close friend and fellow artist GhostInnaFurCoat. But there’s much more that never went to print.

Below, we drop five previously unpublished hints fakemink gave us about the project back in January of this year, from its “secret feature” (Drake?), inspirations from UK drill, and more.

1. THERE’S A “SECRET FEATURE”

While playing me scattered tracks from the album directly into my AirPods, mink abruptly paused a melodic cloud rap song with bassline-influenced production halfway through.

fakemink: This one has a secret feature that I can’t share yet. 

[fakemink gestures at his manager across the table] 

fakemink: Even he hasn’t heard it.

2. HE TOOK INSPIRATION FROM “2018-2020 DRILL”  

After finishing the early run-through of the project, I remarked that his vocals remind me of how UK drill artists use melodies. 

fakemink: Yeah, when I was doing London’s Saviour, I used to listen to a lot of grime, like a lot of Skepta and JME. But, now, it’s just been drill. That 2018-2020 era drill is nostalgic to me – it reminds me of when I was in secondary school. I love UK drill. Some songs are just undeniably catchy; the melodies are like a pop song. It’s just their own melodies.

What sort of songs? 

fakemink: You know “PCD On The Mains” by 67? To me, that’s like the peak time. The drums... There’s a lot of UK drill that isn’t just the standard sliding 808s. I feel like a lot of new UK drill gets boxed into this New York drill sound, but there are so many songs that have melodies that will go unheard by someone who only listens to a Zuko or a fakemink. 

One person who’s doing this very well is Sinn6r. Like, his subject matter isn’t what drill rappers usually talk about, but they’re the same cadences and flows as what he used to listen to growing up [adjusted] for a new, underground ear. People are like, ‘Wow, this is so catchy’, but if you used to listen to drill, you know the cadences. 

3. IT’S A “CRUDE CARICATURE OF LA”

Early in the interview, I asked fakemink how his life has changed since becoming famous.

fakemink: I still sleep hella, I still leave things to the last minute. Like this album, Terrified, right? The concept of it has been two years in the making, but in terms of production and recording… From August, I did this mini tour, Toronto, New York and LA, and I didn’t get home until 25th of November. All that time, I was in LA and New York and I wasn’t recording much music, and none of it was for Terrified. But Terrified is about that time. I had to come back to England to be outside of that LA environment to be able to write about it. With my music, I care more about world building than anything else. I could have been in LA, recording songs about LA, but I felt like I had to be home so I could be bored and then try to remember like, ‘Oh, what was LA like?’ and rebuild it in my head. 

So, it’s shaped by your own mental state?

fakemink: Yeah, it’s not a true depiction of LA. It’s more like an exaggerated version, like a really crude caricature of LA. What I’m talking about is not, like, super on the nose. It’s hard to explain without listening. 

4. GHOSTINNAFURCOAT CHOSE THE SONG TITLES

fakemink spoke about how Terrified is all about his personal experiences, and I remarked that it’s interesting how he trusted GhostInnaFurCoat to help express them. 

fakemink: Yeah, I’ve known him since 2016 and he gave me the name for London’s Saviour. He also did a lot of the song titles on Terrified.

[mink pulls up the tracklist on his phone]

fakemink: So, I chose ‘Terrified’, ‘Playlist’, ‘Creep’ and ‘Like A Virgin’, but the rest are him. One thing I like doing is putting out titles of already existing songs, because ‘Music And Me’ is named after this Michael Jackson song of the same name. 

5. IT’LL “TAKE TIME TO UNDERSTAND IT” 

While discussing competitivity in the UK underground, mink explained how he tries to be ahead of trends. 

fakemink: When it comes to making music that is ahead of trends, you just really have to trust your creative intuition. Have you ever seen a piece of clothing or a song and you’re like, ‘I thought of that first’? I’m sure it’s a universal experience. Ideas are given to everybody; it’s just whoever executes it first gets to claim it. Like with this whole nostalgia wave that has been happening – artists like Feng. Before Feng was even a thing, I knew there was going to be an artist who does this 2010 nostalgia thing, and I did it for a bit at the beginning of 2024, but now, that cycle has ended. 

The point I’m trying to make is that these ideas are in the ether, and then they go into some people’s heads and maybe only one or two people execute them. So, when I see people like Feng doing what they’re doing, I’m like, ‘Damn, I knew that was going to happen’. It’s all about trusting your creative intuition. So, with the stuff that I’m gonna put out for Terrified, it’s gonna sound super weird to people, but it will take time. The same way that London’s Saviour took time for people to understand it. People are still finding London’s Saviour today. To me, that project is dated but, to someone else, it’s brand new.