From Sleeping Rough in London to Kiwi Charts

Mitch James is a New Zealand pop singer. As a teenager he was put out of the family home, and with that he made a decision that would shape his life: he moved to London with just twenty pounds in his pocket.

London turned out to be hard. In a 2018 interview that Stuff published, he described living rough in the city and put it simply: it was not fun. He explained that from Monday to Thursday he could earn enough to pay for a hostel bed, but that the weekends were a different matter, when that money ran out. The reports do not say exactly how old he was, which year it was, or how long this lasted.

From London he picked up odd jobs in different parts of Europe. Then something changed through the internet: he was discovered online and signed to a record deal back in New Zealand, which brought him home with a career in front of him.

By November 2019, when he spoke to 1News at the age of 24, he had become a regular presence in the national Top 40. He had been nominated for Album of the Year, Best Solo Artist and Best Pop Artist at the Vodafone New Zealand Music Awards, and he was preparing a summer tour with Six60 across New Zealand, Australia and London.

In March 2019 he had opened for Ed Sheeran in Dunedin, and he told 1News that Sheeran, despite being a global star, still feels like one of the boys. A story that began with twenty pounds had come a long way.