Labrinth

Timothy Lee McKenzie (born 4 January 1989), better known by his stage name Labrinth, is a British musician, singer, songwriter, rapper and record producer. Initially he began professionally as a producer, but Simon Cowell signed him to his record label Syco Music as a solo act. In the process, Labrinth became Cowell's first non talent-show signing in six years. In 2018, supergroup LSD was formed with Labrinth a member alongside Sia and Diplo.

Labrinth made his debut appearance on the UK Singles Chart in March 2010, when his collaboration with English rapper Tinie Tempah, "Pass Out", reached number one. McKenzie has collaborated with Tinie Tempah on numerous occasions since. Labrinth's first solo single, "Let the Sun Shine" was released in September 2010, reaching number three in the same chart. His debut album Electronic Earth, was released on 31 March 2012, having been preceded by the singles "Earthquake", featuring Tinie Tempah and "Last Time", which peaked at number two and number four, respectively. He achieved his first number-one single in November 2012 with "Beneath Your Beautiful", featuring Emeli Sandé.

In 2018, Labrinth created the supergroup LSD along with Australian singer-songwriter Sia, and American DJ and producer Diplo. They released their first single, "Genius", on 3 May 2018, with their second, "Audio", being released a week later on 10 May 2018. Their third single called "Thunderclouds" was released on 8 August 2018.

McKenzie was born and raised in Hackney, London and is of Jamaican and Canadian descent. He comes from a family of musicians consisting of nine siblings, and grew up at home surrounded almost exclusively by the sound of American gospel music. When they were younger, he and his eight siblings formed a band called Mac 9. He attended Stoke Newington School and began to pursue a musical career during his school years. His brother, Mac (who also goes by the name mac1), is a producer, and introduced McKenzie to the art of creating music in his studio at the age of 15.

Labrinth started his career by producing the track "Dead End" for recording artist Master Shortie from the album A.D.H.D. (2009). The track generated interest in McKenzie as a producer and songwriter, entailing Guy Moot of EMI Music Publishing to offer the artist a publishing deal. From 2010 to 2011, Labrinth mentored the Urban Development Vocal Collective (UDVC) alongside his sister, ShezAr. He also produced multiple tracks for the collective, contributing towards a nine-track project titled Urban Development. The vocalists also provided backing vocals for Labrinth's original tracks. Other artists to collaborate with the collective include Wretch 32, Chip, Maverick Sabre and Devlin.

On 28 February 2010, McKenzie appeared as an uncredited guest artist on British rapper Tinie Tempah's debut single, "Pass Out" - having also produced and co-written the track. The single debuted at number-one on the UK Singles Chart, number seventy in Australia and number six on the Irish Singles Chart. Having spent two weeks at the summit in the United Kingdom, "Pass Out" was awarded Best British Single at the 2011 BRIT Awards and Best Contemporary Song at the 2011 Ivor Novello Awards, also achieving platinum certification from the British Phonographic Industry for surpassing sales of 600,000 copies. Several months later saw the two artists collaborate for a second time with the release of Tempah's second single, "Frisky" - again co-written and produced by McKenzie. The single debuted at number two in the United Kingdom, beaten only by the charity single "Shout" featuring Dizzee Rascal and James Corden. The track saw chart success in Scotland, where it became the duo's second consecutive number one single, also peaking at number three in Ireland.

On 23 May 2012, Labrinth performed at the Cheltenham racecourse to celebrate the occasion of the Olympic torch coming through Cheltenham. Labrinth performed at the University of Leeds' Summer Ball on 2 June 2012, supported by R&B act Angel, and Nottingham Trent University Graduation Ball on 9 June, at the Capital FM Arena in Nottingham. On 15 June, Labrinth performed at the University of Surrey End of Year Show. The event was held at Rubix, the University of Surrey's very own club. Yasmin was his support act on the evening. On 29 June, Labrinth performed at VG-lista top 20 in Norway in front of a crowd consisting of 90,000 people. Labrinth also performed at GFest in Preston on 8 September 2012 to celebrate Preston Guild 2012. The song "Beneath Your Beautiful", which features Emeli Sandé was released as the album's sixth single and peaked at number one in November 2012. On 25 December 2012, Labrinth released the Atomic EP for free download via SoundCloud. It features Plan B, Devlin, Wretch 32, Ed Sheeran, Maxsta, Lady Leshurr and Etta Bond among others.

Labrinth has been working on his second studio album Take Me to the Truth since 2013. He has written with Ed Sheeran for the album. He has also been in the studio throughout November 2013 recording album content, and will soon be revealing some new material. He also appeared on two tracks for Tinie Tempah's second studio album Demonstration: the third single "Lover Not a Fighter" and the album track "It's OK". The first single from the album, "Let It Be", premiered in August 2014 and was released on 28 September 2014. The second single from the album, "Jealous", was released on 23 November 2014.

In July 2013, Labrinth was picked as Elvis Duran's Artist of the Month and was featured on NBC's Today show hosted by Kathy Lee Gifford and Hoda Kotb, where he performed live his song "Beneath Your Beautiful".

Labrinth features on the track "Losers" on The Weeknd's album Beauty Behind the Madness (2015). Labrinth also did a duet on the track "Fragile", the lead promotional single from Kygo's debut studio album Cloud Nine.

In 2016, Labrinth worked alongside Mike Posner on Posner's widely successful album At Night, Alone. Labrinth is featured and co-wrote on the sixth single, "Silence". The album was officially released on 6 May 2016. "Silence" was written by both Posner and Labrinth. The song was produced by Posner and Terefe. He also produced and was featured in "Make Me (Cry)", Noah Cyrus' debut single, released on 14 November 2016. After his duet with Sia in Wonder Woman soundtrack "To Be Human" 2017, Labrinth became one of the members in the collaboration with Diplo and Sia. This is the first time the three artists have worked together on a single project. According to Diplo, LSD started when he was invited into the studio to write with Labrinth and Sia. "Genius" is the first piece of music from the group. LSD released "Genius," "Audio," "Thunderclouds", and "Mountains" from their upcoming debut album to be released on 2 November 2018.