Lil Ugly Mane (US rapper)

Travis Miller (born May 13, 1984), best known professionally as Lil Ugly Mane, is an American musician, rapper, singer, and record producer. Noted for his diverse style, introspective lyrics, and various side projects, Miller's work spans a wide range of genres, including experimental hip hop, black metal, lo-fi music, indie rock, and free jazz. He has also produced under the alias Shawn Kemp, and has recorded under the names Bedwetter, Vudmurk and several others. Miller began his performing career in the 2000s in the noise and punk circles of Richmond, Virginia, though his published work includes pieces from as early as 1999. He first gained wider recognition in the early 2010s through his work with Florida hip hop collective Raider Klan and his debut album Mista Thug Isolation in 2012. Mista Thug Isolation drew influence from East Coast hip hop, Memphis rap, horrorcore, and chopped and screwed music, and has since been hailed as a pivotal work in the underground hip hop scene. Following a brief retirement beginning in 2013, he released his second album Oblivion Access in 2015. From 2016 to 2018, Miller was a member of the underground rap supergroup Secret Circle with rappers Wiki and Antwon. In 2017, he released the album Volume 1: Flick Your Tongue Against Your Teeth and Describe the Present as Bedwetter. Miller released the third Lil Ugly Mane album, Volcanic Bird Enemy and the Voiced Concern, in 2021. Travis Miller was born on May 13, 1984. Little is known about Miller's personal life. He rarely grants interviews and has openly expressed his disinterest in maintaining a physical presence. He is originally from Virginia, having lived in Virginia Beach and Richmond. Miller's early musical interest came up in the hardcore punk music scene where he attended shows and collected albums. In a 2024 interview with comedians Brandon Wardell and Jamel Johnson, Miller said that he had previously lived in Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Los Angeles. As of 2024, Miller lives in Asheville, North Carolina. Miller began performing in the mid-to-late 2000s, playing with local noise and punk acts in Richmond. He started recording Southern hip hop-inspired tracks as Lil Ugly Mane in 2010, initially only releasing demos and remixes on the music distribution platform Bandcamp before releasing his first full-length project, Playaz Circle: Pre-Meditation (The First Prophecy) Preview Mixtape (Real Murder Posse Underground Version), in 2011. During this period, he collaborated with Florida hip hop collective Raider Klan, designing the group's album art and appearing on the song "My Hood" from group founder SpaceGhostPurrp's 2011 mixtape Blackland Radio 66.6. In January 2012, Miller released the EP Criminal Hypnosis: Unreleased Shit, featuring cut tracks from Playaz Circle. "Cup Fulla Beetlejuice" A sample of the song "Cup Fulla Beetlejuice" from Miller's album Mista Thug Isolation (2012). Pitchfork's Andy O'Connor described it as "classic Three 6 production mixed with goofy Halloween ghost sounds". Problems playing this file? See media help. On February 11, 2012, Miller released his first studio album, Mista Thug Isolation, exclusively on Bandcamp. The album was produced by Miller under the alias Shawn Kemp, and contains a feature from rapper and Raider Klan member Denzel Curry on the song "Twistin". It received a limited cassette release through the record label Ormolycka, and a vinyl pressing through Hundebiss Records. Despite a lack of promotion by Miller, the album gained attention primarily through word-of-mouth marketing, and was praised by Odd Future members Earl Sweatshirt and Tyler, the Creator. The album's sound has been described by music writers as being influenced by East Coast hip hop, Memphis rap, horrorcore, and chopped and screwed music, and has drawn comparisons to the works of Three 6 Mafia, Gravediggaz, Smif-N-Wessun, DJ Screw, and Wu-Tang Clan. Mista Thug Isolation has since been acclaimed as a landmark and a classic in underground hip hop; in a retrospective review for Pitchfork, Andy O'Connor called it "one of the decade's most defining underground rap albums". Mista Thug Isolation was followed by a number of smaller releases, including the EP Uneven Compromise in October 2012 and two volumes of the mixtape Three Sided Tape, consisting of unreleased songs and instrumentals that were recovered from Miller's broken computer, in August 2013. On August 30, 2013, Miller released the single "On Doing an Evil Deed Blues", in which he outlined his grievances with the music industry and his intention to retire the Lil Ugly Mane project. After the release of the single, Miller labeled Lil Ugly Mane as "defunct" on his Bandcamp page, and largely withdrew from the public eye. He infrequently returned to upload new music, including the 18-track mixtape Absence Of Shitperson and the EP The Weeping Worm in 2014, but remained quiet on social media. On April 29, 2015, Miller released Third Side of Tape, the third and final volume of the Three Sided Tape series, featuring a compilation of tracks recorded from 1999 to 2012. In a statement made alongside its release, Miller announced that a physical box set of the trilogy would be distributed and suggested that his listeners "shouldn't be so Stratfordian". The liner notes of Third Side of Tape implied that it would be Miller's penultimate project. In September 2015, Miller and fellow Richmond rapper Nickelus F released a collaborative mixtape titled Trick Dice. Miller's second album Oblivion Access was released on December 18, 2015; he described the project as "the last of the filthy water funneling out of the bathtub I've been soaking in for 5 years". An experimental hip hop album, its lyrics were characterized by music publications as the darkest thus far in Miller's discography; they explore topics such as existentialism, boredom spurred by the Information Age, and the cycle of violence. Joe Sherwood of Tiny Mix Tapes appraised it as a "eschatological/scatological compendium of life and death in the rap game", and highlighted the stylistic contrast between the album and Mista Thug Isolation, commenting: "There's no self-serious reinvention to be found, and maybe that's the point — what started as a jokey pastiche of Memphis rap is coming to an ironic conclusion, even with the former veneer stripped away." Bandcamp Daily's Christina Lee described the album as "bleak" and noted feelings of claustrophobia, particularly on the track "Grave Within a Grave". Jots of Sputnikmusic called it "an album of dealing with... ugly, real baggage" and "a collage of Miller's capabilities, and a lament of what he is incapable of." In 2016, Miller formed the underground hip hop supergroup Secret Circle with rappers Wiki and Antwon, releasing their first track "Keep It Low" on June 8. The group released the single "Satellite" featuring the rapper Despot in early January 2017. On January 29, 2017, Miller released his third album Volume 1: Flick Your Tongue Against Your Teeth and Describe the Present under the alias Bedwetter. The following day, he posted a statement on Facebook in which he recounted a three-month-long struggle with finding psychiatric care, eventually leading to his admittance and discharge from a hospital after asserting he was not suicidal or at risk of hurting others. In the same post, he criticized the American mental healthcare system as "absolute shit" and said that it had a "very real potential to turn people who voluntarily seek help ... into violent suicidal monsters". After the release of the album, Miller continued working with Secret Circle, releasing the single "Tube Socks" in May 2017. In June, Miller made a guest appearance on the song "Zeltron 6 Billion" from Denzel Curry's EP 13. In July, Secret Circle followed up with the single "Tonka Truck", produced by Left Brain of Odd Future, and later released "Ounce Of It" in February 2018. In April 2018, Miller released a new project titled Thing S Thatare