Labrinth was the quiet man – the mastermind producer and songwriter behind an endless stream of hit records, films and critically acclaimed TV scores. He was the golden boy, a go-to for pop stars like The Weeknd, Beyoncé, Madonna, and Rihanna. He was not someone known for making trouble. So it was a shock, earlier this year, when he posted an expletive-laden, all-caps message to Instagram announcing he was walking away from the US teen drama series Euphoria, his record label, and the entire music industry. “F*** COLUMBIA,” he wrote. “DOUBLE F*** EUPHORIA. IM OUT [sic]. THANK YOU AND GOOD NIGHT.”
That since-deleted post landed just a month before the much-delayed third and final season of Euphoria. The musician, real name Timothy McKenzie, had been enlisted by show creator Sam Levinson to score the first two seasons, then the third – only now Labrinth was to be joined by Oscar-winning composer Hans Zimmer. In early interviews, he seemed excited at the prospect, telling one journalist: “A lot of the compositions I’ve fallen in love with have been his, so it’s weird that I get to even just be in the presence of this scoring god.” But by April, he’d pulled his music from the show, and Zimmer received sole credit for the season three score.
