Cench just revealed why he'd never use a stylist

Central Cee just made it clear that he isn't only a style icon, he's a self-aware king, too. Yep, the musician has opened up about being unexpectedly catapulted into fame and the impact this has had on his attitude towards wealth and materialism today.

In an interview with Highsnobiety, the 24-year-old went deep on what clothes mean to him, explaining that they're key to his self-expression. Letting someone style his outfits would be “my worst nightmare,” he explained. “Clothes is like your skin, innit? Can’t let a man choose my skin,” he went on.

Stylist or no stylist, as we all know, Central Cee has a pretty distinctive look: immaculate tracksuits, bright box-fresh trainers and his signature Chanel diamond chain.

But Cench's love for clothes started long before his rise in the entertainment industry. Taking pride in his fashion sense is something he got from his dad,. Although he didn't see much of him growing up, the way his father wore clothes and presented himself made a lasting impression on Cee. “My dad’s proper stylish. No matter what, he makes sure his ’fit is fly,” he said. “He hasn’t come from money, he’s never had a great job or anything, but he always makes sure his ’fit is clean. You never really see him in the same thing.”

And for Cench, feeling good in an outfit is intrinsically linked to his mental health. “I don’t know if it’s OCD, but I’ve got a proper complex,” he says. “If I don’t feel comfortable in my clothes, I can’t go out the house.”

But while fashion has plenty of upsides, Cee is working to detach from his once “toxic” desire to have new and fresh clothes all the time - something he thinks was linked to growing up without money. “[This need was] created from deprivation, so it’s not actually a healthy want. I wanted it because I felt like I didn’t have it.”

And that’s not all we learned. Cee reminisced about his relationship with his mother as a child, who encouraged him to write his feelings down on paper and share it with her. It was this maternal encouragement that both sparked a love for songwriting, and acted as a therapeutic form of self-care: “I wouldn’t rap no bullshit about the street life that I didn’t know - I was a kid. It was about my feelings,” Cench said.

Perhaps this is why one of the rapper's main aims with his career was to have the funds to help out his family, something he revealed at the end of the interview. “I had one simple goal, which was to get my family out of the situation that they were in, which I’ve done now,” he concluded.