Mikey Rotten

Mikey Rotten is everything your parents warned you about. The ferocious punk rapper is a rogue and a force to be reckoned with like few others, a devil-may-care, non-conforming bad boy with a striking look and a singular vision. But what’s maybe most threatening to the establishment about Mikey Rotten is his never-ending drive to challenge authority. More than just rebelling or raging, Mikey Rotten wants his listeners to question everything about the world around us: the rules we’re ordered to follow, the media pumped into our minds, even what we put in our bodies. His music may not be straightforwardly political or intend to deliver a specific agenda, but he’s always pushing back against the systems and structures that want us to conform, and driving his audience to do the same. In his own words, Mikey Rotten was “born in the swamp, raised in the gutter, and now living out in West Coast paradise.” Conceived in backwoods Louisiana, he came of age amidst the almost post-apocalyptic desolation of the Midwest, and now makes his name in a city of fallen angels. Growing up, when Mikey wasn’t finding trouble on his own, trouble seemed destined to find him, and he’s got a whole movie’s worth of stories even crazier than Kids. But whenever a barrier was put in the way, Mikey blasted through it like a charging bull. Whenever he was told no or boxed in or counted out, he became single-mindedly determined to prove the doubters and naysayers wrong. The energy Mikey once devoted to less-than-legal behavior now finds an outlet in his music, which is equally chaotic and cathartic, a soundtrack for stressed-out and struggling people fighting their way out of difficult situations, just like Mikey has had to do. The wild journey he’s taken to where he is now is also part of why Mikey Rotten remains so relentlessly true to himself and critical of the powers that be. When you’ve spent so much of your life being told who you are and what’s expected of you, there comes a point where