Ben Houghton was born on 6th August 1978 in Reading,Berkshire. From the age of 17 he’s been writing lyrics and began using words as an outlet to express his emotions and thoughts through an alcohol and drug fuelled depressive state. Beginning with the name Conflict he switched names years later when he became more serious about his involvement in the uk hip hop scene. Concerned with being confused with another mc, Conflix, he settled on Phlo.

Two days after his 24th birthday Phlo started his own live promotion called ‘Kindred Sickness’ and booked Radio 1xtras DJ Excalibah, Taskforce and Klashnekoff. After that night he was hooked and began learning how to put his rhymes to music as well as how to improve his own promotions. Under the new name of ‘grhyme’ his promotional success snowballed as he merged established names such as Jehst, Phi Life Cypher, Cappo, Terrafirma etc with the cream of the UKs up and coming acts such as Lowkey who had his first out of London show in Reading. At this point he joined up with Beats’n’Rhymes – a much larger promotional team running nights in Reading, Oxford and the prestigious Brunel Rooms in Swindon. It was then that the 'Mr' was added to the name. In March 2005 he returned to the independent promotion scene and continued with his pioneering style by setting up Readings first fortnightly hip hop show – Standard. More success followed as recent Mobo award winner Sway took to the stage as did Doc Brown and Stylah on the same night until July 2006 when he brought down the curtain on his promoting career with a show that saw hip hop legend Canibus live alongside Yungun & Mr Thing, Lowkey, Stylah and local act DSM.

Mr Phlo continues to pour his soul in to his music whether that be his thoughts on the issues we all face daily or the more heartfelt sensitive issues that other MCs are too caught up in there hip hop personas to address. His words are honest, blunt and sometimes shockingly frank but they always represent his beliefs at the time of writing whether obviously or in a more angled approach. After peppering the internet with tracks during his time promoting, Phlo decided in 2006 the time was ripe to switch from promoter and make his mark as an MC in his own right and set about creating the "Write To Remain Silent" MixCD released in November 2006.