The New Nostalgia: Feng Is Redefining London’s Underground
- Lucas Omni
- Dec 8, 2025
- 3 min read
Something is bubbling in the UK underground. It’s louder, freer, and more unpredictable than anything that’s come before it. The kids running it aren’t chasing trends — they’re building their own world from scraps of internet memory, thrifted fashion, and restless energy. At the center of it all is Feng, a 19-year-old rapper and producer from Croydon whose music sounds like sunlight trapped in static.
Feng’s sound is hard to pin down. It’s part indie sleaze revival, part late-night bedroom rap, stitched together with the glow of early 2010s nostalgia — think Foster the People meets ASAP Rocky with a YouTube-core edge. His songs drift between dreamy and defiant, floating on clean 808s and blurry synths that feel like they’re pulling from a decade you can’t quite remember but somehow miss anyway.
Before he started rapping, Feng worked as a videographer and VFX editor. He was used to helping others bring their visions to life until he realized he had his own. In 2019, he downloaded FL Studio and started making beats “just out of boredom.” That boredom turned into obsession, and soon, a secret double life. He began flying to the States to chase music without telling his parents — a tension that still hums beneath everything he creates.
“Everyone stopped trying to be American,” he said in an interview with Welcome JPEG. “We basically said, fuck it, let’s just do our own thing.” That’s exactly what he’s doing. His music and visuals carry the DNA of the internet era — Tumblr pages, pixelated memories, the Vans-and-skinny-jeans swagger of the early 2010s — but reimagined through a Gen Z lens. “I didn’t live that era, but I grew up online. I saw my brothers live it and thought it was cool as shit. I’m not trying to be nostalgic. I just fuck with the style.”
His debut album What the Feng, released in early 2025, doesn’t just sound like a coming-of-age story — it feels like one. The opener, “Kids from the West,” is a full aesthetic statement: colorful, chaotic, and alive. The video looks like a time capsule cracked open — chokers, Vans, vintage snapbacks — a visual remix of the past filtered through the boredom and brilliance of now. Feng directed it himself, calling up friends and models last-minute. “We didn’t even plan it,” he said. “It was basically a party, and we just filmed it all.”
He works closely with his longtime producer Boxxy, who helps anchor his airy sound with hard drums and textured melodies. “I like vocal chops, 808s, and simple, hard-hitting drums,” Feng said. “Boxxy does that really well.” Together, they’ve built something that feels both nostalgic and brand new — a sound that mirrors the London scene itself: messy, bold, and beautifully unfiltered.
Offstage, Feng is quiet. He writes lyrics in his phone notes on the train or late at night, lights off, recording in his room. “That’s when I flow,” he said. “I’m disconnected from the world. Nothing matters and no one can tell me what to do. It’s just me and the music.”
Faith also plays a big role in his story. Feng became a born-again Christian at seventeen and talks about God with the kind of sincerity that cuts through his laid-back tone. “He keeps you grounded in such a crazy world,” he said. “When I’m thankful for what I have and kind to people, that’s when I feel closest to Him.” He prays before every show — a small ritual before stepping into the chaos.
He’s performed only a handful of times, but each set feels like a glimpse into the future of London’s underground — sweaty, euphoric, and communal. “It’s such a good feeling,” he said. “Everyone’s so happy, just vibing with each other. That’s what life’s about.”
Outside of music, Feng’s curiosity spills everywhere — from film to philosophy to shellfish YouTube videos. “There’s beauty in mundane things,” he said. “Explosions and action bore me. I like small stories, little moments that feel real.” That mindset shapes his writing too: songs about everyday experiences that somehow feel cinematic.
Feng might still be figuring it all out, but that’s the point. He’s not chasing perfection — he’s chasing feeling. His art lives in that liminal space between worlds: past and present, faith and fame, London and everywhere else. It’s messy, honest, and full of motion.
This is Feng’s era — not because he’s bringing something back, but because he’s showing what comes next.
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