to Bow to live with his father when he was eleven years old. When Cowie was a teenager in the early-1990s, he began to sell crack cocaine and heroin. Cowie was introduced to drug dealing from a DJ friend who was making a lot of money at the time. Cowie stopped dealing drugs when a local drug dealer who was much older than him began to threaten him and his friend. Cowie began producing music after he stopped dealing drugs as an alternative way to make money. Cowie started as a DJ, and eventually began rapping, incorporating garage music and drum and bass into his produced instrumentals which led to the creation of the first ever grime beats such as "Eskimo", produced in Christmas of 1999 or 2000 and officially released in 2002. He broadcast his productions over pirate radio stations such as Rinse FM. Initially Wiley went by the name DJ Wildchild, until a woman from Kool FM began using the name Wildchild herself and surpassed Wiley in popularity. As a result, he changed his name to Wiley Kat, a reference to a Thundercats character, and later simply Wiley. Though Cowie stopped selling drugs, he was still associated with criminal gangs and with people who took part in criminal activities. This led to Wiley being involved in many situations that were life-threatening. On one occasion Cowie's friend had solicited money from someone following a drug deal though the money never was paid, Cowie argued with the person who owed his friend money and eventually Cowie was ambushed when attending a show. The confrontation led to Cowie being stabbed seven times. Several weeks later, the same people attacked Cowie outside a sports retail store, which led to Cowie almost dying in a hospital in Hammersmith. Cowie has been stabbed more than twenty times in his lifetime and has been in numerous other life-threatening situations including being chased by a man with a samurai sword and being shot at with shotguns. Music career 1996–2003: Early years As a teenager, Wiley featured on pirate radio stations such as Rinse FM and drum and bass stations. In 2000, Wiley went from SS Crew to join The Ladies Hit Squad, a garage crew with his college friends DJ Target and MC Maxwell D. They achieved some success on the UK garage scene and soon decided to combine with rival crew Pay As U Go