West Yorkshire to the world: the viral fame of MC Meathead

Last year, in a school playground in Huddersfield, a group of bored teenage boys egged on their friend to spit a freestyle during break. One of the lads played a catchy bassline track on his phone, and his mate – who goes by the name Meathead – casually reeled off some bars with his hands tucked in his pockets. The rest of the boys gassed him up, both in awe at his skill and amused at the cruddiness of the lyrics. Little did Meathead realise, this moment would change his life.

“I didn’t know it was getting recorded or uploaded,” Meathead, now 17, says over the phone. “[My mate Alex] put it on TikTok for a laugh and it’s absolutely blown up.”

The freestyle, which became known as Numerous Bootings due to a bar which got a big reaction from his mates, hit TikTok on 5^th May this year. So far, the clip has amassed over 23.9 million plays on the app. There have been EDM remixes, thousands of lipsync videos and endless reshares worldwide with captions like ​“I can’t unhear Meathead’s lyrics.” Leeds DJ Tom Zanetti said Meathead is ​“the most viral man in the country.”

“I was quite overwhelmed at first but I got used to it,” Meathead says. ​“I’d be getting stopped every five minutes in Huddersfield. I even got stopped in London at a Nando’s. [The freestyle] was big in the Phillipines, there was a lot of people from Asian countries that liked it, also in Italy. For some reason, it was used by a verified account for an Australian football team. Seeing people respond to it in different languages is the one thing that spins my head. It’s crazy how big it got.”

Since going viral, Meathead has signed to Relentless Records, a label with Wiley, Headie One and Ms Dynamite in its back catalogue. Numerous Bootings has been recorded and released as an official track, and there’s a glossy music video for a remix featuring Bradford bassline rapper Bailey Holmes. Meathead says his mum prefers the remix to the original. ​“I’ve had a lot of people say that – even I prefer it,” he says. ​“The feedback’s been really positive.”

Meathead – who since blowing up has started sporting a more stylised haircut: a thick, front-loaded mullet – first started MCing over drill and grime beats with his older brother. Numerous Bootings borrows violent slang from drill, which contrasts with Meathead’s seemingly relaxed vibe in the original footage. Admittedly, he was surprised people took to the song in light of its lyrical content.

With its hard-hitting, euphoric beat by Sheffield-via-Scotland producer Skizzy, Numerous Bootings is also putting a lot of people on to the sound of bassline, a dance music genre which emerged from Sheffield in the ​’00s, which both Meathead’s parents are fans of. ​“There was a lot of bouncy tunes in the house growing up,” he says.

These days, the West Yorkshire city of Bradford arguably has the hottest bassline scene. In recent years, there’s been a fresh wave of the genre that’s emerged – one that’s more sugary than the ​’00s stuff. The new sound is MC-led and features uptempo organ stabs, pitched-up female background vocals and thick, rubbery bass (think Waltzer music). In the late 2010s, the sound went international thanks to the breakout success of Bad Boy Chiller Crew, who caught attention with their druggy social media skits, while in West Yorkshire it has been embraced by local stars such as Marky B, S Dog, KAV and YA.

Like a lot of artists in the West Yorkshire bassline scene, Meathead describes himself as a ​“charva”, a term which describes British working class youth culture. With Numerous Bootings going viral, the #charva hashtag has been used by TikTokers from Surrey to Sydney. But not everyone seems to understand, or care, about the context of the word.

The word charva has roots in Romanes, the closed and sacred language of the British Romanichal Romany Gypsy. Charmaine Abdul Karim, founder of Romany campaign group The Pride of Romany, says that ​“the ​‘charva’ subculture — from the clothing, gold jewellery, slang and overall aesthetic — borrows heavily from Romany culture, often without any recognition of its origins.” She says Romany groups can find usage of the term in wider culture disrespectful, when those who use it don’t acknowledge the culture’s roots and the historic prejudices faced by Romany Gypsy people.

Away from its origins, the word has taken on a life of its own. In the South of England, you’re more likely to hear the variation of ​“chav”. In some contexts, the words chav or charva are used as a derogatory slur towards working class-people. But in the case of the West Yorkshire bassline scene, it’s worn as a badge of honour, a celebration of council estate life.

The most notable adoptee of charva culture outside of Yorkshire is actually a lad from Birmingham – but not that Birmingham, the one in Alabama. Content creator Vuncle205 has amassed a following of 211.8k on TikTok, recently boosting his numbers by documenting the process of trying to transform himself into a charva.

After three years of making content on a separate account, Vuncle decided to commit himself to exploring British subculture, embarking on a voyage of brain-rot and hyperspecific TikTok in-jokes. There were memes about drinking a Gegg (A pint mix of eggs and Guinness) and a dark matter trowel (nodding to a Call of Duty weapon skin). He started interacting with British content creator and bricklayer Mitchell Sercome (aka Alan Reet), with the pair galvanising their engagement by referencing each other’s videos and tagging each other in their posts. Vuncle also referenced the ​“chocolate charvas”, a group of Black brits who went viral in 2023.

“[Some people in the comments] were like, you’re not a real charva unless you do this,” Vuncle says. ​“And I’m like, alright dude, these guys want me to become a charva so I’m going to give it to them.” Despite never travelling beyond the US, Vuncle’s pursuit of charva and British subculture has led him to donning Montirex, getting a ​‘scouse trim’ at his local barbers and a US Sur-Ron (electric dirt bike) meet up to try and get the feeling of Bradford bike culture. He’s also eaten hopeful but nonetheless tragic iterations of beans on toast and fish and chips. ​“I think that’s the beauty of it – I’m still trying to figure out everything,” he says.

When Vuncle began using bassline tracks in his social media videos, his numbers shot up, and he’s since had UK and Irish artists like S Dog, Marky B, Evian Christ and Kettema pop up in his comments on Instagram. ​“Going into UK culture, I already liked EDM, and bassline is kind of addictive,” Vuncle says. His videos have been soundtracked by Bradford bassline and house tracks such as Marky B’s Estate Life, Weiss’s Feel My Need, I Wish You Were Mine by Philip George and, of course, Numerous Bootings.

Vuncle was quick to repost Meathead’s freestyle, and the pair quickly struck up a friendship online. Vuncle is intentionally playing it for laughs. And in the case of Meathead, the appeal of the freestyle probably had something to do with the novelty of a Northern kid rapping about letting ​“the pumpy bruck” while wearing a school blazer and tie. But whether or not people are laughing at him or with him, Meathead has skillfully capitalised on the virality with a freshly inked record deal and a savvy social media strategy.

In May, Meathead performed live for the first time at Tom Zanetti’s Stadium Weekender in Scunthorpe, the line-up which also included Basshunter, Bad Boy Chiller Crew and Example. He says more tracks with Bailey Holmes are in the pipeline, and he alludes to an upcoming collaboration with ​“four very big artists from Bradford.”

Looking to the future, Meathead is level-headed. He wants to travel and take his mates with him whilst putting Huddersfield on the map. ​“It could go as quickly as it came but it could also go a lot further,” he says of his viral fame. ​“I’m just enjoying it whilst it lasts, expecting nothing, and hoping for everything.”