Bugzy Malone

Aaron Daniel Davies, better known as Bugzy Malone, was born in Manchester on 20 December 1990 and has become one of the city's most recognizable rap voices. He raps and acts, and he was among the artists who pushed grime back into the spotlight in the mid-2010s, steering the UK urban scene away from glossier, more commercial sounds. Malone also holds a specific distinction: he was the first grime artist from Manchester to find real commercial success across the UK. His breakout came with a run of EPs that kept climbing the charts. The third, King of the North, arrived on 14 July 2017 and peaked at No. 4 on the UK Albums Chart, a strong showing for a release that wasn't even a full-length album. That momentum carried into his debut studio album, B. Inspired, in 2018, which went to No. 6. A second album, Bigger Than Me, followed in 2021 and landed at No. 7. Along the way he built a reputation for gritty, narrative-driven writing about Manchester life, and for high-energy live shows that connected him with audiences well beyond the North West. Acting has run alongside the music. Malone appeared in the 2019 film The Gentlemen, directed by Guy Ritchie, and took a recurring role in the third season of the Netflix series Top Boy. His screen work spans a handful of film and television credits, enough to establish him as more than a musician making a cameo. He has also been open about the personal cost of his rise: a serious motorcycle accident in 2020 left him with injuries that required a long recovery, and he has spoken publicly about the mental toll of that period. Born in the same month and city that shaped so much of his subject matter, Malone has stayed tied to Manchester even as his audience widened. At 35, he sits in an unusual spot: a grime pioneer from outside London who crossed over into film and television without abandoning the sound that got him there.[edit]