He’s hit the Top 10 with his past three EPs, but Bugzy Malone’s career is set to reach new heights with the August 17th release of his debut album ‘B. Inspired’. After launching the project with ‘Warning’, Bugzy now amplifies anticipation for the album with a double-shot of activity: not only has he dropped a new track and video in the shape of ‘Drama’, but he’s also announced his biggest headline tour to date.
‘Drama’ finds Bugzy’s incendiary rhymes exploring a narrative based around the anticipation and intensity of the preparations for a major heist. It’s also a cautionary tale. Had events in his life unfolded differently, the criminal world might’ve been Bugzy’s reality – an existence that’s glamorous for the disenfranchised but with dangerously high odds of mortal failure. Instead he’s on a mission to champion young people who’ve been dealt a bad hand in life.
“‘Drama’ is what my life could’ve been like if I didn’t turn things around,” says Bugzy. “There are other ways out than crime. I’m now in a place where I can speak to a lot of people and my whole ethos is switching on the belief switch in people’s heads. If people take inspiration from that then it’s priceless.”
Backed by production by Diztortion (Stormzy, Kano), the track’s spaghetti western-style introduction and searing guitar solo from Alastair O’Donnell (Tinie Tempah, Krept & Konan) infuses ‘Drama’ with a cinematic scale atmosphere that evokes Bugzy’s love of the gritty Netflix crime drama ‘Narcos’ and the visionary directors Quentin Tarantino andChristopher Nolan.
The official video for the track was put together by Bugzy with his regular collaborator Connor Hamilton and filmed at various locations in Dubai. Extending Bugzy’s track record for high end, conceptual visuals, it interweaves an intense film-within-a-film crime narrative with performance footage shot at the top of a skyscraper.
Having already claimed his crown as The King of the North, Bugzy’s set to take his gospel further afield with the biggest tour of his career. The ‘B. Inspired’ tour is the biggest headline tour to date by any grime artist and will see him perform to a total of 38,000+ people. It includes two 4000-capacity homecoming shows at Manchester’s Mayfield Depot.
He’s set to play the following dates:
OCTOBER
18th – Liverpool, O2 Academy 1
19th – London, Printworks
21st – Oxford, O2 Academy 1
24th – Newcastle, O2 Academy
25th – Leeds, O2 Academy 1
26th – Birmingham, O2 Academy 1
27th – Norwich, UEA
NOVEMBER
1st – Nottingham, Rock City
2nd – Bristol, O2 Academy 1
4th – Cardiff, Y Plas
8th – Manchester, Mayfield Point
9th – Manchester, Mayfield Point
14th – Edinburgh, Corn Exchange
Tour presale starts at 10am on Tuesday 10th July http://listings.ticketweb.co.uk/bugzymalone Fans who pre-order the ‘B. Inspired’ album from https://bugzymalone.tmstor.es/ before then will receive a unique code giving them exclusive access to the pre-sale
Tickets go on general sale from 10am on Thursday July 12th. They’ll be available from www.gigsandtours.com and www.ticketmaster.co.uk.
‘B. Inspired’ will be released on August 17th, with formats including a limited edition signed print, an exclusive slipcase, signed versions, and digital including streaming pre-saves. Fans can pre-order the album from https://lnk.to/Bugzy_BInspired.
‘B. Inspired’ finds Bugzy stripping back his outer bravado to reveal the man behind the surface. Unafraid to rap about issues which are be too painful to speak about in person, Bugzy’s tales pulsate with raw emotion. These are immediately relatable narratives: heart-breaking flashbacks to a traumatic childhood viewed from the perspective of an adult, and stories of everyday folk desperately battling against the tide – some swim to a brighter future, while others are submerged by overwhelming odds.
