Aaron Daniel Davies (born 20 December 1990), better known by his stage name Bugzy Malone, is a British rapper and actor from Manchester, England. Malone has been described as one of the key artists instigating a "grime revival" moving the UK urban scene away from more commercially-oriented music, and the first artist in the grime genre from Manchester to commercially succeed in the UK.
Malone's album King of the North was released on 14 July 2017 and peaked at 4 on the UK Albums Chart.
Early life
Malone was born Aaron Davies in Withington Community Hospital and grew up in Crumpsall, Manchester, in a family of career criminals. He grew up in a poverty-stricken household and had never met his biological father in his childhood. Davies saw his stepfather as a role model until his parents divorced due to domestic abuse. He grew up being influenced by his family members who were involved in criminal activities, including his uncle whose murder he witnessed. Davies began taking part in criminal activities when he was eleven years old, and as a result was expelled from secondary school in year nine when he was fourteen. He continued a life of criminal behaviour until he was arrested when he was sixteen years old and sent to HMP Stoke Heath; he was unable to complete his GCSE exams. After leaving prison when he was 17 years old, Davies took up boxing as a hobby in an attempt to find a career and avoid returning to crime. While he was boxing as a career, Davies moved close to his biological father in Marple, Greater Manchester, before they eventually lost contact. He moved close to Heaton Park when he was 20 years old.
Davies was inspired to start rapping from the influential "Risky Roadz" DVD series that also inspired the careers of Dizzee Rascal, Wiley and Skepta. He began rapping with his friends when they would often congregate or commit crimes. His friends would play instrumentals from their mobile phones which Davies would then freestyle on. Davies received the nickname "Bugz" from a gang he was in when he was 13 years old, before developing into "Bugzy Malone" when he was serving his prison sentence. After leaving prison, Davies began to take music seriously as a side hobby to his then-growing boxing career.
Career
2010–2015: Career beginnings
Malone released his debut mixtape, SwaggaMan, in 2010. He began freestyling for northern grime YouTube channel KODH TV on their series Spray Out Freestyle. He then freestyled on popular urban YouTube channels including Grime Daily. In 2011, Davies released his second mixtape Why So Serious, inspired by Batman: The Dark Knight Rises. The lead single from the mixtape "Hip Hop Heavy Metal" was released on 21 September, 2011 and the music video currently has 1.3 million views on YouTube. Lost in Meanwhile City, Malone's third mixtape, was released in 2012. Malone commented on the mixtape on his website: I called this mixtape "Lost In Meanwhile City" because I stumbled across a film called Franklyn — I felt like I could relate to the dark atmosphere at the time and also some of the featured characters faced similar problems I felt I was faced with i.e family problems, girl problems, law suits, depression. I felt 'Lost In Meanwhile City' was the perfect metaphor for my position in life at that particular time, I felt lost and basically in a world of my own. The lead single for the project and the second music video created by Malone was released on 23 August 2012. In 2014, Malone announced his fourth mixtape, Journal of an Evil Genius, and begun a "mixtape campaign" where he released music videos with narratives that coincided with the singles released from the mixtape, similar to a "visual album". The visuals were released in the form of a YouTube video every Monday at 19:00 for six weeks. On the topic of creating a campaign consisting of videos to promote the mixtape, Malone listed Quentin Tarantino as an influence and said: "I felt as if I wanted to tell a story loosely based on reality and used the raw emotion of the songs as an excuse to create a mini-horror movie." As of 2017, the videos have over 5 million views combined on YouTube. The mixtape was released on 10 February, 2014. Talking about the mixtape, Davies wrote on his website. I called this mixtape 'The Journal of an Evil Genius' mainly because that is what it is. The songs themselves are written in a journal-like style making this record the one that means the most to me. The "Evil Genius" is an alias I came up with one day in the studio and it just kind of stuck. This project is an Intricate/accurate story about my past all the way back to childhood going right the way up to the present giving it a journal-like feel.