04/12/2021
Bury New Road’s Bugzy Malone, the King of the North has amassed over 100 million views on You Tube and plays to 20,000 people at a sold out AO Arena tonight. Last night he played a secret intimate gig at JD Sports in the Arndale Centre to launch his new range of Skeleton trainers and said playing the home town gig will be a ‘spiritual’ and ‘emotional’ experience...
“Breaking down doors” is how Bugzy Malone describes his mission. From Bury New Road to world domination, he’s already trashed the music biz, amassing zillions of views on YouTube, releasing mega selling albums and now in the midst of a sell out tour that lands at the AO Arena tonight.
“I feel that people who are fans of me are like connected to me” he told an intimate audience at a special appearance in the JD Sports store in the Arndale last night “So when I get to stand up and perform in front of pure people who are connected to me, it’s like a bit spiritual, it’s mad...It’s an emotional thing for me...a big deal for me....”
Grime...rap...call it what you want but Bugzy’s rich lyrics are pure brilliant psycho-sociology; of the journey from getting evicted from his home on Bury New Road, to becoming the ‘King of the North’, acknowledged by anyone under 25 and anyone older who gets a taste...
‘I say welcome to the hood, welcome to the hood
Where no-one teaches you to love because we’re all products of lust
We learn to tell a lie before we even learn to trust...
The person they call mental health is the person we call mum...’
It takes John Cooper Clarke’s Beasley Street - also coming from Bury New Road - to a new, now dimension. But where Johnny Clarke stuck to the literary world, with a bit of music chucked in, Bugzy is going all out in the film world – now on his second Guy Ritchie movie – and storming the world of fashion...
“I’m out here kicking down doors” he said in the on-stage Q&A session with Specs Gonzalez last night “When people started calling me King of the North I took it seriously because of what I’m trying to do...They never used to take Manchester seriously and then I started breaking records, making serious money...
“They take us seriously so therefore what I’m doing is breaking down doors in the clothing industry and the people behind me can come through and get taken seriously” he added “And the same things happening in the film industry; and it’s already happened in the music business.”
The Skeleton trainers, retailing at £110 and launched at the JD Sports pa, were, he said, “designed around the anatomy of a scorpion...When I was young and getting into bits of trouble there was a Nike jacket we used to wear that had a similar kind of design, so I decided to strip it back make them the Skeletons.”
It all makes a change from what’s currently rattling in the culture closet, where Manchester and Salford hasn’t been on the mega music map since Oasis, with the Mondays, Hacienda, Hookie and New Order still touring to keep the flame alive. Bugzy Malone, for the last few years has been re-establishing the place as ‘far from ordinary’...
“People underestimate Manchester as a talented place so there’s much more...waves and waves that will come through” he concluded.
And tonight feels like something very, very special happening at the start of Bury New Road...“It will be my honour to perform...”
Photos by Louise Garman
