Codes and Conventions of Rat Boy

Jordan Cardy, known by his stage name Rat Boy, is an English musician from Chelmsford, Essex. His distinctive blend of hip-hop with indie-rock hasn’t gone unnoticed within the UK. Rat Boy has been compared to similar artists like Jamie T, Clash and The Beastie Boys.

Rat Boy's music is an amalgamation of several styles, particularly indie rock and hip-hop. Even with professional support from the record label Parlophone, Jordan Cardy has a DIY approach to the art and music he produces, commonly recording and producing his own tracks at home and creating all his own album art. Rat Boy’s themes of songs consist of narratives and stories within the lyrics, with the music videos focussing heavily of the performance side of things. He also includes samples recorded of sounds and conversations from his daily life within his music. The majority of the songs Rat Boy creates comes with the parental advisory label, due to explicit content.

Rat Boy and his band were signed to Parlophone Records in 2015, shortly after in 2016 Rat Boy was added to ‘BBC Sound of 2016 Longlist’ showing recognition of their potential. NME and MTV have also supported Rat Boy over a period of time.

SCUM was released on August 11^th, 2017 being Rat Boy’s debut album and was the advanced to a deluxe album including 25 tracks, including a variety of interludes, skits and samples. The album was evidence that Cardy’s DIY approach continues as his popularity rises. SCUM charted at number 15 in the UK Charts and included the single ‘Sign On’ that peaked at the number 1 position on UK vinyl.

The music video for ‘Move’ contains a cartoon/puppet protagonist creating the role of Rat Boy; creating an abstract and unique video, showing that Rat Boy is willing to step outside of his normal approach. Below is the video to 'Move'.

Having looked at a variety of Rat Boy’s videos it appears that the majority of the videos created also adopt the DIY approach that are performance based rather than narrative based. However there is careful consideration of prop placements and locations.  Below is a variety of music videos from Rat Boy showing the common theme of the DIY approach in both visuals and audio, which is the main convention of the artist.