Jordan Cardy (born 21 February 1996), known by his stage name Rat Boy, is an English musician from Chelmsford, Essex. He studied at Chelmer Valley High School in Chelmsford and went on to study Art at Colchester Institute. Despite being dyslexic, he began writing songs in his spare time, releasing songs on SoundCloud under the name "Rat Boy", a name given to him by his school friends who claimed he looked like a rat. After college Cardy was hired and subsequently fired from Wetherspoons, which provided inspiration for his first release on SoundCloud, The Mixtape. He sent "The Mixtape" to various record companies and in response Drew McConnell (bassist for Babyshambles) arranged for Rat Boy to have a meeting with him, Cardy was subsequently signed to Parlophone in early 2015. In addition to this "The Mixtape" was featured in NME Magazine and played by radio stations including BBC Radio 1, Radio X and BBC Radio 6. Rat Boy was added to the BBC Sound Of 2016 Longlist, an annual poll in which over 100 Music Specialists select artists they believe will be successful within the next 12 months. In December 2015, MTV released its Brand New for 2016, an annually released article and webseries containing artists to watch out for during the upcoming year. Rat Boy was shortlisted along with 10 other artists including Bonkaz, Jack Garratt and Rationale. He was also nominated for the Best New Artist 2016 by NME magazine, which he subsequently won, along with performing his single "Move" at the awards ceremony. In April 2017, Cardy's song "Knock Knock" was sampled on Kendrick Lamar's song "Lust", taken from his fourth studio album, Damn. When he found out about the sample, he tweeted his appreciation for it. On 11 August 2017 Rat Boy released his long-awaited debut album Scum. The album was initially released with 13 tracks, however a deluxe 25-track version was also released. The deluxe version included more than 15 minutes of skits, samples and interludes, as well as an extra song "Sad Sad" featuring fellow indie musician Mallory Merk. The album reached 15 in the uk album chart. In December 2017, Cardy supported Liam Gallagher on his UK solo tour. On 25 January 2019 Rat Boy released the studio album Internationally Unknown which was recorded in 2018. Rat Boy featured on McFly's 2020 album, "Young Dumb Thrills" under a song of the same name.