From Watford to Winner: myles’s X Factor Journey

16 Jul

The Start of Something Unlikely

Before the tours, the streams, and the spotlight, there were just four best mates and a dream. We weren’t chasing fame, we were chasing a sound.

Ashley and Jamal met at uni and started creating music under the name “Track Sec Suits”, eventually bringing in Mustafa. They were uploading covers to YouTube, performing outside stations, and gigging across the UK in bars, pubs, anywhere that would take them.

I was always around, sometimes the driver, sometimes just the extra guy in the studio, but I’d been producing on Logic since I was 16 and writing grime bars since I was 13. One night, I played them a song I’d written about a French girl I was seeing. It caught their attention. Still, I stayed behind the scenes.

That changed after one late-night gig in Brixton. Ashley and Jamal had a classic argument about direction, and as usual, I gave my two pence. Mid-argument, they turned to me and said:
“Why don’t you just join?”
So I did.

With that, we rebranded from Track Suit Mafia to Rak-Su, short for “Rhythm and Knowledge – Soul and Unity”. The name meant something deeper. The sound got tighter. And everything clicked.

The Night That Changed Everything

One night after a small gig at Heaven nightclub in London, something unexpected happened. A girl from the crowd approached us and asked:

“Have you ever considered auditioning for The X Factor?”

We laughed. That wasn’t the plan. We were independent, original, and didn’t think a show like that would suit us. But after she invited us to a behind-the-scenes audition, we started to talk. And argue. A lot. There were genuine disagreements in the group, some of us thought it would water down the music, others saw the opportunity. Eventually, the conversation turned from “should we?” to “why not?”.

We had nothing to lose. If we could just get one of our original songs on national TV, that alone would be worth it. A shot at five minutes of fam, just enough to boost our monthly listeners and open a few doors. So we went for it. and the rest as they say is history.

Making xfactor History

We weren’t even supposed to audition in Manchester.

We’d been invited to the London audition, but I was about to fly to Jamaica. With barely any notice, we changed plans last-minute and booked in for Manchester instead, just to get it done. What could go wrong?Well… the night before the audition, me and Mustafa went out. Hard. We didn’t get home until 6am and had to be at Old Trafford by 7am. I turned up still half-hungover.

Then the day started dragging. And dragging. We were the only act being followed by camera crews the entire day. Literally shadowed everywhere we went, filmed in holding rooms, corridors, interviews. At first, we thought “Are we being set up here? Are they going to make us look like fools?” Or maybe they saw potential.

We actually perform for the judges until 2am the next day. That’s nearly 20 hours of waiting around, nerves building, energy fading. But when we finally hit the stage, something just clicked. The judges stopped us halfway through and asked”

“Do you have anything else?”

We did. We performed “I’m Feeling You” and they loved it.

The next day, it went No. 1 on Spotify’s Global Viral Chart. We made headlines, and that audition clip went everywhere.More importantly, we made X Factor history:

Rak-Su became the first act to perform original music at every single stage of the competition.

From the closed auditions to the live finals every song you heard was written and performed by us. No covers. No ghostwriters. Just pure graft, day in, day out.

Behind the Scenes: No Sleep, All Grind

While other contestants were rehearsing covers, we were in the studio writing, producing, arranging, and rehearsing new songs every single week. We’d get 4 hours of sleep on a good night, writing by night, dancing by day, recording in between. We weren’t just performing. we were building everything from scratch. There was no animosity between contestats, we call got on pretty well and they loved us, saying from th ebeiginning “They’re going to win” … we didn’t belive them.

Winning X Factor: A Surreal Moment

When Dermot said “Rak-Su,” life changed in an instant. We didn’t expect to win. The original goal was five minutes of TV exposure. Instead, we walked away as the winners. What followed was a whirlwind:

UK Top 2 single: “Dimelo” ft. Wyclef Jean & Naughty Boy
Fan favourites: “Mamacita”, “Rotate”, “I Want You to Freak”
Headlining Capital’s Jingle Bell Ball
Touring with Little Mix
Dropping our debut EP and a sold-out theatre tour

We went from busking and gigging to performing in front of hundreds of thousands, all within a year.

What X Factor Gave Me

The X Factor gave me belief. It gave me a platform to show what we were really about — not just performers, but songwriters, producers, and storytellers.

More than anything, it reminded me why I do this. For the music. For the culture. For the people that feel it like I do.

Watch the Story Unfold

A full behind-the-scenes video is coming soon to my YouTube Channel -telling the unfiltered story of the X Factor journey. From chaotic late-night studio sessions to that life-changing final, this one’s for the real fans.

👉 Subscribe now so you don’t miss it.

Myles Stephenson