Bugzy Malone is a rap sensation, an actor, a clothing designer, and – in his words – a man who is ‘capable of anything’.
On the brink of his biggest UK tour to date, which includes a massive homecoming gig at Manchester’s AO Arena, Bugzy’s rise to the big leagues didn’t come easy.
He had to break into an industry that was stubbornly focused on London, escape a life of ‘struggle’, and put in serious graft.
He’s at the highest point of his career so far – and yet, this will be his final tour.
In an exclusive interview with The Manc, we hear about Bugzy’s retirement from the touring circuit, his memories of finding fame in Manchester, and how he got into ‘the shape of his life’.
‘People call me the king of the north’
Growing up in Crumpsall, Bugzy Malone is a born-and-bred, loud and proud Mancunian.
He’s been dubbed ‘King of the North’ – also the name of his chart-topping EP – which is a title he takes seriously.
“I see it as my duty to give a good account of myself for the north so people can come after me and be taken seriously,” he tells us.
“I was the first Manchester artist to get taken seriously in what was a London-centric industry, in my genre of music anyway – obviously there was Oasis and things like that.
Bugzy Malone
“We’ve laid a foundation here for other rappers from the north of England to go into the industry and make a serious impact.”
He name-checks a couple of rising stars from our region – Moston-born Aitch and ‘very talented’ rapper Meekz Manny.
“All I would really say to them guys is ‘Keep going’,” he says.
“The talent’s there in Manchester but the belief system’s not.
“I’m hoping this tour will demonstrate that it can happen – it’s been six years and here I am performing at the arena in my hometown.”
‘Who better to headline the Manchester Arena than me?’
Bugzy Malone will be the first solo grime artist to headline Manchester’s enormous AO Arena.
It’s a big undertaking to perform in front of a crowd of 21,000 but he’s match-ready.
“For the first rapper from my genre to headline the Manchester Arena, who better than me to do it?” he asks.
2.7M VIEWS IN 5 DAYS & TRENDING #1 😅 All i’m saying is if WARMODE hits 3 Million views by Thursday night, FUCK IT i’m bringing my Lambo out on stage the night of the Manchester arena tour show on Dec 4th!!! 💪🏾😤#RunItUppic.twitter.com/9NYiXlEIxV
“As you know, Manchester’s a unit. To stand there with my audience, who are a real loyal bunch of individuals.
“They’re my people – the people I was getting on the bus with, the people I was sat on the tram with, the people I was walking in the Arndale with. That’s a real deep connection.
“You can’t beat the atmosphere at a Manchester show.”
He promises that there are ‘serious surprises’ in store on the Resurrection tour, adding: “There are people coming out on stage to perform with me that’s going to blow people’s minds that they’re coming out on tour with me.”
‘Parklife was a big moment’
The AO Arena gig is a big deal, but it’s not the first time the star has been faced with a huge hometown crowd.
He was one of the headliners of Parklife festival back in 2018, a performance that stands out for him.
“I went there nervous,” he admits. “You do wonder if anyone will care when you rock up on stage.
Bugzy Malone on stage at Parklife in 2018. Credit: Andy Hughes
“But I remember I couldn’t see to the back of the audience, it was just thousands of people out on the field.
“The reaction was insane. When I rolled up on stage it was just a complete shutdown.
“That for me stands out as a big moment and a moment when I knew that my hometown was behind me and I’d built to a big place.”
‘You’re not supposed to go shopping when your face is in the window’
Bugzy’s fame has grown exponentially since his days of freestyling on YouTube (he’s now amassed more than 320m views), and the journey has come full circle.
He says he remembers window-shopping at JD (though he was always ‘nervous’ browsing in Selfridges, which is ‘a bit posh’) with his mates as a teenager.
Then the first time he was recognised and asked for a photograph was also in a JD.
And now, his face is in the windows.
He says: “There are things that I miss from when I wasn’t famous – Manchester is a real community-based place and I was a kid who was just everywhere all the time.
In 2019, with the B. Malone trainers he designed. Credit: Twitter @thebugzymalone
“You start becoming a little bit famous and that becomes harder to navigate.
“For the first year I’d be looking at my friends like ‘This is mad isn’t it?’ but eventually you start to understand the connection with you and your fans.
“And then flipping heck, eventually we had the clothing [his range B.Malone] in JD.
“I was still in the habit of running in there for a pair of trainers but one time I was shopping and there was a big picture of me.
“It started to not look right and not feel right. The perception is that you’re not supposed to be in there buying a pair of Nikes when your face is in the window.”
‘Touring is too big of an obligation’
While he’s promised to keep making music, and working the festival circuit, there won’t be a tour of this scale again.
He’s just not got the time with his fingers in so many pies, and refuses to do anything half-heartedly.
“I’ve just got to a stage now where my time’s just really taken up with the bigger picture of where I’m going and where I’m expanding to, so instead of half-heartedly doing anything, I thought I’ll go and do some festivals and connect with people there, but in terms of a tour, it’s a little bit too big of an obligation.
“People will get 100% of me, but next year, the year after, if I’ve got three or four films lined up and big business ventures flowing, I can’t promise that.
“And that’s what’s important for me. As long as I put 100% in, I’m happy.”
Bugzy appeared in Guy Ritchie’s The Gentlemen alongside Hugh Grant and Matthew McConaughey, and has recently been filming alongside Jason Statham in Doha, again on a Guy Ritchie project, due to for release in January.
Acting is time-consuming, he’s discovering, saying: “It all involves a lot of commitment to rehearsals and a lot of commitment to training.
“I’m a secret agent now,” he jokes, “I had to look cool, you know?
“I’m in the film with Jason Statham and as you know, he’s in crazy shape, so I had to put myself through my paces to get into the shape of my life.
“I turned up in the Middle East for that film and I was in solid shape, I won’t lie to you, and it’ll be the same process for the tour.
“It makes you a sharper individual.
“I’ve got myself to a level of fitness now where I’m capable of anything.”
‘It takes hard work and dedication to transcend the position you start in’
Bugzy Malone in The Gentlemen. Credit: Twitter @thebugzymalone
Bugzy repeatedly circles back to the message of inspiring future generations.
“I have an investment in people that come from a similar situation to me, which was basically struggle,” he says.
“It takes hard work and dedication to transcend the position you start in.
“You’ve got to figure out who you want to be and build yourself up.
“Any ventures that I’ve got going on, it’s a new opportunity to speak to my audience and teach lessons.
“Everything I do is about the narrative of get up out of bed and create yourself some freedom – financially and psychologically.”
Bugzy Malone will play at the AO Arena on Saturday, December 4. Final tickets are now on sale through Gigs and Tours.
Featured image: Publicity picture
Feature
Five Manchester artists we’ve been listening to this month | June 2025
Danny Jones
Hello there. That greeting may be giving Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars vibes, and we can’t lie, we have listened to some cantina music while working this month… but not as much as we’ve been immersing ourselves in more new Manchester artists.
You should know the drill by now, and it is very much a what-it-says-on-the-tin scenario, but every few weeks, we round up some of the music – all crucially hailing from the Greater Manchester area – that we’ve been listening to of late.
We don’t discriminate when it comes to genre either. There’s only one simple rule: if it’s good, then we listen to it and then, hopefully, so do you.
Get your playlists at the ready.
Five Manc music artists we’ve been listening to recently
1. Arkayla
First up for June are relative newcomers Arkayla, whose name is inspired by “a terrible Oasis demo” from 1991 (their words, not ours – thought it is…) of the same name, a.k.a. ‘I Will Show You’, in which describe Liam Gallagher’s now legendary as once sounding “like a dodgy Ian Brown impressionist.”
However, there’s nothing dodgy about these lot and, thankfully, they’re in an era when you don’t have to hand out tapes recorded in the Boardwalk basement on the street to be heard. The Manchester band, which only formed in 2020, may be Standing on the Shoulder of Giants, but they’ve already got a sound.
There’s an unmistakable British indie element to them and hints at everything from The Kooks to The Lathums, but most notably, there are ’60s guitar notes and some real maturity already. Standouts include ‘Ella Malone’, the acoustic version of ‘Lost In a Valentine’, where the lead singer, Cal Blakebrough, really shines, and ‘Rita’ is such an addictive track.
They don’t get more unknown, undiscovered, but sure to be up-and-coming than iNNAFIELD, who are a female-fronted psychedelia-forward five-piece with roots in Brighton but building a career in 0161. Having recently shone at The Deaf Institute playing a support slot at Academy 1, they have our interest.
If a glimpse of lead singer Jessie Amy Leask’s curly hair, 70s belts and long, flowing skirts plants Stevie Nicks and Fleetwood Mac in your mind, you’d be right in thinking so; a listen to their other live tracks scattered across their socials confirms there’s plenty of other influences going on too, though.
Now, they’ve only got one proper recording out on Spotify called ‘Tell Me What’s On Your Mind’, but we’ve had it popping up on our algorithms everywhere, and we can see why: there’s soft, twinkly strumming, soft almost sleepy vocals before a nice big breakout at the end. Glorious stuff.
No, not that one, the Princess of Monaco isn’t back from the dead, but ‘r Grace Kelly, who is based right here in Greater Manchester, is playing her part in the ongoing country revival taking place across the music world, offering her soulful voice and faux American-folk vibes to our ears.
She may not be a Mancunian by birth, having moved from New Zealand to our shores back in 2022, and although the weather change might have been a big sea change for her, there’s no culture shock to be found in her style; from the audio to the aesthetic, it still somehow feels pretty authentic.
Uplifting acoustic guitars, drum brush strokes, solos, Southern-twang harmonies – you name it, all the ingredients are there. The thing is, if you spend enough time immersing yourself in a genre, you can still pull off tracks like ‘Carry On’, ‘San Jose’ and the intimate ‘For Us To Change’.
We’re really lane switching when it comes to genre this month; maybe it’s because festival season is in full swing and we’re just being exposed to so much different stuff in a short space of time, all we know is we’re not complaining about it.
And neither should you, especially when you’ve got names like hip-hop, grime, soul and flag-flying Afrobeats rising star, Prido, being platformed. Blending all the above with R’n’B and a sprinkling of not just Northern but easily detectable Manc slant, it makes his music stand out in the ever-thriving space.
‘Free Ur Mind’ was the first track we ever heard, so we’ve struggled to shake that as our favourite, but ‘DND’ is a supremely dancey but chill example of laid-back of the genre that you need in your mixes this summer, and we also have a soft spot for his verse on the sensual ‘Lifeboat’ by Prima.
Last but not least on our list of new Manchester artists for this June, we’ve got local DJ Josh Baker, whose name you might recognise from the headlines surrounding Parklife 2025, as his set was unfortunately cancelled due to problems out of his control.
Festival-goers flocked to The Matinee Stage for a highly anticipated back-to-back bill of Baker followed by Dutch counterpart Chris Stussy, both of whom have thrilled some of the biggest club crowds in the country – sadly, he didn’t get to do so this time. That being said, we thought we’d give him a shout-out.
We’ll confess to only having got around to his discography following this news, but ‘Back It Up’, ‘Something To Me’, and ‘You Don’t Own Me’ with Prospa and RAHH are all bangers. We’re looking forward to listening to more.
And that should just about do you; there are five artists and, at the very least, 15 new tracks for you to give a go – there should be at least of few of them you like.
But, let’s be honest: be it unheard, new, current, old or anything in between, Manchester music very rarely ends up being filed in the skippable category.
Then again, you can always check out last month’s list of Manc artists from last month and see if you get a better hit ratio.
Featured Images — Prido (via Facebook)/Arkayla (via X)/Grace Kelly (via Facebook)
Feature
You can sleep in a luxury train carriage at an old railway station in Greater Manchester
Thomas Melia
There’s an Airbnb listing in Delph where you can stay in a classic converted train carriage, and it’s even situated in an old train station, so someone buy my ticket ASAP.
Get ready to have the best train experience of your life, as the only cancellation you have to worry about is booking the day off work.
The Carriage at The Old Station is a two-person character property in Delph, Saddleworth that offers you the chance to live out your vintage fantasy by stepping back in time on a luxury static train coach.
It may be situated at an old station, but the interior is refreshing and light with mint blue beams, fuchsia cushions and a royal red carpet and curtains.
As well as a majestic interior, this carriage has an equally impressive amount of amenities, including a Bluetooth sound system, board games and its own indoor fireplace.
This Airbnb is fairly new too, with only 44 reviews to its name – the first only dating back to September of last year; don’t say we don’t find you some absolute gems.
Inside the Airbnb that’s an old converted train carriage.The interior of this Airbnb listing is bold and impressive.
One user even stated, “We regularly stay in five-star locations and this surpassed five-star easily! We highly recommend a stay here.”
While another opened her review with three simple adjectives that we also feel perfectly sum up this train carriage property perfectly: “Opulent, indulgent, extravagant”.
It should come as no surprise that this place is beautiful inside and out, as in the description, host of the property Nigel states he’s a retired designer.
The train carriage stay is also close to a proper country pub, The Old Bell Inn, as well as the Diggle canal walk if you fancy a stroll and a pint before tucking into bed in your old train carriage for the night.
Even the bathroom has pops of colour throughout.You could stay in this train carriage at an old train station.
If you’re after boarding The Carriage at The Old Station and having a fabulous overnight stay or mini holiday of your own, you can find the Airbnb listing and everything you need to know HERE.
Daisy Jackson -
19th November 2021 
