2Milly

It all started during a block party in Brooklyn three years ago. Spike Lee was celebrating the 25th anniversary for cult classic film Do the Right Thing when BK native 2 Milly felt the energy of the crowd, became possessed by the music and jumped on top of a car, performing his “Milly Rock” dance.


Onlookers in the crowd filmed his impromptu performance and uploaded it to YouTube. He became an overnight online sensation. In a matter of days, videos went viral, and thousands of people across the country began uploading videos of themselves doing the dance. The craze had gotten so popular that even Chris Brown, Wiz Khalifa and Rihanna joined in, uploading their own rendition of the “Milly Rock.”


“The dance has always been around. It was just a turn up with me and my friends. It was just a good vibe,” Milly explains. “I’m drinking Bombay and orange juice so I get on top of a car and start milly rocking for like two or three minutes. The next day, they’re hitting me up like ‘you’re famous.’


He continues, “I was like I only did that in front of 90 people. Imagine if I could do that in front of 90,000 people. So let me make a song to it.”


And that’s exactly what he did. He found a hot instrumental beat on YouTube and a year later, 2 Milly released the anthem for the dance, aptly titled “Milly Rock.” By the end of summer 2015, the video reached over a million views on YouTube. He had garnered so much attention that platinum rapper Travis $cott brought Milly and his Stack Paper crew on-stage during his performance at the influential New York City festival Hot 97 Summer Jam.


He is now sweeping the nation on his Sturdy Way Tour and awaiting the release of debut mixtape Only the Sturdy Survive. And even though his success in the music industry is for certain, Milly is still soaking up all the game he can from his rap mentors Maino and Travis $cott, who advised him to “just be yourself,” 2 Milly said they told him. “They said the game will try to change you; people will try to change you, try to make you into what they want you to be.”


Born in Brooklyn and raised in the Bedford–Stuyvesant neighborhood, 2 Milly came up hard like every other kid in the hood. Crammed in a two-bedroom apartment with his mother, father and three brothers, growing up was “really rough,” he recalls.


So to ease the stomach rumblings, he jumped into the streets at age 13, engaging in illegal activities for survival. “We did what we had to do,” he clarifies.


And while many of his friends and members of his Sturdy Gang Stack Paper crew were catching cases left and right, Milly managed to do his little dirt and still keep his nose clean. In fact, his ability to allude the law earned him his nickname.


“They’d be like, ‘how do you stay out here for so long? You’re 2 Milly,’” he says. “Out of all of them, I’m the only one who never went to jail.”


Now after gaining national fame with his music, 2 Milly hopes to shed some light on the rest of his Stack Paper crew with his forthcoming, highly anticipated mixtape Only the Sturdy Survive.


“I’m not the only one in my camp,” he said. “It’s not just 2 Milly, Milly Rock. It’s a group of us.”