Rising Rapper Marnz Malone Cements His Position With 'Tina's Boy' Mixtape

Marnz Malone is an incredibly gifted storyteller, the young Birmingham rapper finding the pocket with an ease, as he breathes in the spaces in between instrumentals. Rapping with clarity and eloquence his tone is authentic but doesn’t hide the rawness in it as he provides details about his personal life and the bleakness of life on the roads on Tina’s Boy Malone’s third released project since last year.

As the tape progresses you notice that all of the impressions that the rapper experiences bleed into each other. Simply, his music is influenced by the life he lived, lives and the choices he makes - which what makes him sound so real. The trauma he shoulders is heard in every verse, as well as the normalcy of death and violence, and the familiarity of prison.

Modern but reminiscent of the 2010s to 2016 era, he creates and colours a version of Birmingham that is familiar if you listen to the likes of Jaykae, Depz, Depsa and Lady Leshuur over the years and more recently M1llionz.

Consisting of fourteen tracks, and released in jail, the Birmingham rapper he struggles to identify with being a rapper and what that means to his sense of self, as well as the revaluation with the people in his circle on the opening track ‘Cold Hearted World 2’.

Speaking about the overarching themes and meaning behind the track he says “Before I was Double M or Marnz Malone, I was Tina’s Boy. It’s mad there’s people calling me a rapper now. I’ve been hearing about all the love and support from the trenches and I’m so overwhelmed, I appreciate every one of you, you're changing more than my life.”

Standout tracks are the downtempo ‘Went To War’ featuring Potter Payper an introspective and thought provoking questioning of the direction that both rappers are taking. Whilst ‘CREAM’ is a nod to American hip-hop group Wu Tang Clang and excuse for Marnz to style on a beat with effortless flows

An intricate self-portrait is designed on ‘Medusa Eyes’ but there is also an examination into the relationships that are closest to him such as his mother, who emotionally beams with pride through voice notes and paid homage to on ‘Tina’s Son’.

He’s also apologetic on ‘Whilst Smile For Me’ which features the R&B singer KayMuni’s sweet vocals. Marnz raps “Smile for me mum, it’s going to be all right, I know you haven’t seen my face in a fortnight / I hate to see tears on your face in the courtroom.”

‘Forever missing you’, a different type of vulnerability is a scream into the void and something you feel as if you stumbled on by accident. An unflinching engagement with pain and grief as north London drill artist Bandokay and Montz addresses a lost father figure each - whilst having to define their idea of manhood on their one’s

The project, at times runs the risk of sounding too similar subject wise, recircling the same group of themes, and sonically based around soulful samples, emotive instrumentation and motivational samples from pop culture media.

However, in between all that, Marnz ventures out as there are moments of romantic expression on tracks such as ‘Back2Miami’, a short but sweet track built for TikTok sound, ‘Roof Down’ and ‘No service’.

Despite the predominately dark images that Marnz conveys, still at the beginnings of his career, he's maintained his consistency whilst adding a valued contribution to the history of the midlands in the UK rap scene in the purest sense.

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