ALBUM REVIEW: B. Inspired, Bugzy Malone, BSomebody Records, Out Now

Any chance grime MC Bugzy Malone (real name Aaron Davis) has of walking round his native Manchester without being stopped has gone after debut album, B.Inspired.

Uncompromising to the point of being almost casual about the realities of “life in the hood”, Malone has joined Skepta, Wiley, Dizzee Rascal, Tinie Tempah and Stormzy in making grime the UK’s official answer to US hip-hop music.

B. Inspired itself is both an autobiographical account of Malone’s self-confessed life on the wrong side of the tracks and an attempt at explaining the madness of gun and knife crime. On B.Inspired itself, Malone states that he “was brought up in a house with no carpet, birthdays with no parties, card games on Atari”.

But tracks like Ordinary People, Run and Submarine suggest a light at the end of the tunnel for the “angry black man generation” some sections of society are looking to as an explanation for what is wanton lawlessness.

However, the problem with B.Inspired lies in tracks like Warning, Die By the Gun and Come Through, each of them descriptions of the absolute hell that grime music too often represents.

Review by Winston Brown