Neo-blues & soul singer Rory Graham was born and raised in the small town of Uckfield in the south-east of England.
Growing up on early blues and soul, he taught himself to sing by mimicking Muddy Waters, before discovering hip-hop. Starting out in music at age 15 as an MC with a local drum'n'bass crew, he progressed to hip-hop open-mike nights in nearby Brighton, where he later moved, teaming up with local hip-hop crew the Rum Committee. At the same time, he continued to practice singing in private. Aged 19, he took part in a blues open-mike night at the encouragement of his father, and the rapturous response to his singing boosted his confidence enough to make him consider it as a career rather than rapping.
Graham’s moniker came from his childhood memories of he and his grandfather watching repeats of the British ‘60s sitcom Steptoe and Son, about a pair of rag-and-bone men – dirt-poor street collectors who in bygone days would go around gathering up rubbish in an attempt to find useful rags, bones, and scrap metal that could be sold to merchants for a few pennies.