{"id":879351,"date":"2026-09-01T10:32:10","date_gmt":"2026-09-01T10:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/879351\/"},"modified":"2026-09-01T10:32:10","modified_gmt":"2026-09-01T10:32:10","slug":"lancey-foux-on-the-time-of-our-lives-and-legacy-im-signing-out-of-everything-ive-built","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/879351\/","title":{"rendered":"Lancey Foux on \u2018The Time Of Our Lives\u2019 and legacy: \u201cI\u2019m signing out of everything I\u2019ve built\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Don\u2019t let the sweaty, pearl-blue-lit hedonism of his album cover fool you: when Lancey Foux<\/a> (born Lance Omal) joins NME\u2019s Zoom call, the 30-year-old is coming from a morning spent in regimented rigour. Already, he\u2019s completed a full-body boxer-style workout and spent the rest of his morning sharpening his skills behind the decks, with a Cupra car event later on. It\u2019s a typically restless schedule for an artist, DJ and budding label head whose career has rarely settled into one lane. \u201cI get super busy, so I try to go to the gym five or six days a week,\u201d he says. \u201cI just try to get it in where I can.\u201d<\/p>\n

Foux wasn\u2019t always a 6am riser. His cutting, almost samurai-like focus has been tempered through years of learning and relentless work. Before all that, however, the rap crooner\u2019s cult mixtape run began with the double shot of 2015\u2019s \u2018Pink\u2019 and \u2018Teen Skum\u2019, alongside breakout track \u2018About It\u2019, before gathering momentum with \u2018Too Far Alive\u2019, \u2018Pink II\u2019 and 2019 cult favourite \u2018Friend Or Foux\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I kicked off doing the things I was doing, there wasn\u2019t anyone else doing it how I was,\u201d he asserts, in reference to his style of rap in the mid-2010s rap pantheon. \u201cI might be new to fans who only discovered me last year, or I might be looked at differently by people who\u2019ve been tapped in for 10 or 15 years now. I never rest on my success because there\u2019s always more to do. I\u2019m always going to be making music.\u201d<\/p>\n

His trailblazing intuition continued into 2026 with the release of his new 21-track album, \u2018The Time Of Our Lives\u2019, which is filled with rousing sports car bangers (\u2018Porsche Poet\u2019) and ATM-emptying anthems (\u2018Seeing To It\u2019). Foux describes the record as a \u201crefined version of everything I\u2019ve made\u201d up until this point, distilling years of experimentation into one project.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\u2018The Time Of Our Lives\u2019 arrives just six months after \u2018First Degree: 2nd Charge\u2019, a sequel to his 2021 mixtape that sidestepped streaming services entirely. Released exclusively through the direct-to-fan platform [untitled], proceeds from it were donated to charities supporting independent musicians. Foux\u2019s mixtape and new album feature a medley of newly created material and songs from 2023 (for the former) and 2024.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis year, a lot of the tracks I\u2019ve put out have been in the vault for a minute,\u201d Foux explains. \u201cSongs like \u2018Change Your Mind\u2019 and \u2018Naked On A Yacht\u2019 were among the first solid songs on the album, and those were created in the summer of 2024.\u201d<\/p>\n

When you make as much music as Foux does, it\u2019s easy to rack up stacks of songs. \u201cYou could go on a flight to Japan and listen to unreleased music, and when you land there\u2019ll still be another couple of hours of music. Both projects were about me going through what I had and thinking, \u2018What makes sense for how I feel right now?\u2019\u201d he explains. \u201cIf it doesn\u2019t resonate with me and the truth, I\u2019ll leave it out and put something that does.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sole guest on \u2018The Time Of Our Lives\u2019 is also someone who resonates with Foux. Rising South London rapper Finessekid<\/a> appears on the slick and silvery \u2018To The Money\u2019, on which skippy production practically places the listener under legal obligation to head-nod as the pair launch into a molten back-and-forth. For Foux, the collaboration was dead simple: he was a fan. \u201cWhen I see someone new coming, especially when they\u2019re Black and from London, I see myself in them in that sort of way, not always musically at first. I feel like I have a responsibility to support them and be of service.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I see someone new coming, especially when they\u2019re Black and from London, I see myself in them\u201d<\/p>\n

Foux understands the weight of an early co-sign, having collected a few formidable ones himself. Skepta<\/a> became a frequent collaborator, Kanye West<\/a> invited him into the infamous \u2018Donda\u2019 sessions in 2021, and Kaytranada<\/a> helmed two tracks on Foux\u2019s 2022 LP \u2018Life In Hell\u2019. Yet he has remained just as attentive to what is stirring beneath him. \u201cI\u2019ve known about certain artists before they think I\u2019ve known about them,\u201d he says with a furrowed, focused brow. \u201cThat\u2019s why, with a lot of them, I end up being so early on people \u2013 even producers.\u201d<\/p>\n

In 2024, Foux\u2019s underground antenna started pinging particularly loudly. \u2018Black & Tan\u2019, his propulsive, viral link-up with YT<\/a>, arrived first, followed by \u2018Conglomerate\u2019 \u2013 a three-headed alliance with Fimiguerrero and Len that became an instant piece of UK underground folklore. Since then, he has linked with SINN6R on \u2018Female Top\u2019, while \u2018Finally\u2019, a forthcoming collaboration with the Afrobeat-and-drill-blitzing rapper N4T, is slated to appear on the latter\u2019s mixtape \u2018A Good And Long Time\u2019, due out in October. \u201cI just love music, I love our culture, and I\u2019m involved in that sense,\u201d Foux utters with a smile as the rapper breaks his Teflon demeanour for a moment of sincerity.<\/p>\n

\u201cI couldn\u2019t force making something that wasn\u2019t real\u201d<\/p>\n

Perhaps surprisingly, \u2018The Time Of Our Lives\u2019 began with Foux stepping away from making music. After years spent inside a near-constant cycle of recording and releasing, he became what he calls a \u201cstudent of the club\u201d \u2013 studying the anticipation before a night out, the abandon of the dancefloor and the bleary journey home. \u201cI started not being in the studio as much as I had been for most of my career,\u201d he explains. \u201cI was going outside and experiencing stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n

That research stains the album\u2019s opening stretch. \u2018Reap What You Sow\u2019 is a cloudy, psychedelic mush of emotions, reeking of spilt bottles, body glitter and jittery club lights. \u2018Who Do You Love?\u2019, meanwhile, folds a Southern hip-hop and R&B twang into punchy, marching-band drums, before dissolving into a synth-soaked outro seemingly pulled from Frank Ocean<\/a>\u2019s \u2018Channel Orange\u2019 playbook.<\/p>\n

\"LanceyLancey Foux credit: Press<\/p>\n

Initially, Foux says, the record was intended as \u201cjust a pure fun party album\u201d. But every night out eventually turns. As the album\u2019s gestation stretched on, songs such as the cloudy \u2018Therapist\u2019, the \u201980s-like \u2018When It Rains It Pours\u2019 and the piano-speckled \u2018Trying My Best\u2019 pulled its final act somewhere darker and more contemplative. \u201cThey\u2019re very real songs for the times when I recorded them,\u201d Foux says. \u201cI might not feel like how I felt on those tracks now, but they were real feelings. I couldn\u2019t force making something that wasn\u2019t real.\u201d<\/p>\n

As our conversation winds down, Foux poses a potential retirement clause for his current rap persona. Completed before he turned 30, \u2018The Time Of Our Lives\u2019 sounds to him like \u201ca refined version of everything\u201d he\u2019s made across the past decade. \u201cIt\u2019s almost like the end for certain shit \u2013 a farewell to what people know me as,\u201d he explains. \u201cI\u2019m signing out of everything I\u2019ve built a little bit.\u201d Far from abandoning music outright, he hopes to explore creative pursuits beyond rap. \u201cIf I wanna go behind the DJ decks and then jump off the DJ decks and rap, and then leave the DJ decks and go sit in the office, it\u2019s all the same person.\u201d<\/p>\n

Foux has already been crowned the \u201cgodfather of the UK underground\u201d, and, to him, that title feels equally fitting and gratuitous, and slightly restrictive. After all, he\u2019s still closer to sixth form than a pension payout. \u201cI put my hands together and say, \u2018Thank you\u2019,\u201d he says, commenting on the weighty moniker. \u201cBut there\u2019s so much more to do.\u201d<\/p>\n

That next phase is already taking shape through Cultcaine Records, his newly launched label, which has signed reggae band The League of Rebelz and rapper Ayrtn. Built around 50\/50 partnerships, which throw out the traditional label framework, Foux\u2019s label aims to create a system in which artists can remain \u201c100 per cent free\u201d and avoid compromising their vision.<\/p>\n

With over a decade in the music world, longevity might as well be Foux\u2019s middle name. \u201cI think it\u2019s just my approach. I\u2019ve always approached everything from the world,\u201d he says, reflecting on what has allowed him to stick around for so long. \u201cI wanted to go to New York, then China, Jamaica and Canada. I didn\u2019t want people to be able to tell what it was or where it was from. I just wanted them to like it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lancey Foux\u2019s \u2018The Time Of Our Lives\u2019 is out now via RCA Records.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Don\u2019t let the sweaty, pearl-blue-lit hedonism of his album cover fool you: when Lancey Foux (born Lance Omal)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":879352,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[49,48,75,341,37878],"class_list":["post-879351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-entertainment","tag-music","tag-rap"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879351","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=879351"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/879351\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/879352"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=879351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=879351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=879351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}