Fresh from the streets of Brixton Marvin is cooking up a storm with the finest hip hop talent in Britain. His new release ‘Superhero’ is taken from his forthcoming album ‘Devil in the Distance.’ The album hosts a concoction of grimy moods and banging beats which Marvin describes as the “bananas sort of crazy sounding filth driven nutness which is my life.” With a claim like that we had to nab a chat with the rapper about his upcoming album and discover why it’s an autobiography of his chaotic life. Be prepared for diva tantrums, masks and capes and the reason why he can’t stand listening to his own song. ‘Devil in the Distance’ was recorded alongside Bob Looke and Any Jenkins, how did this collaboration come about? Basically it was my A and R who worked with the three lads before and he seemed to think our sounds would compliment each other so he made the call and they were like yeah, we’ll be all too happy to do that. I worked with them before on what was going to be my single at the time ‘Guns of Brixton’ it turned out we couldn’t play the song so that fell through and then we kind of knew we had a good working relationship from then so it just makes sense now that we made the album together. What were they like to work with? And what did they bring to the record? Funk! When we made what we had made of the record me and Jack thought that it was pretty good as it was and I suppose that they could put other sounds in there and it really worked, we just ended up working well together. You come from Brixton, how has your surroundings influenced your music? Everything that I write is pretty autobiographical; I suppose growing up here gives me a lot of things to write about. If anybody’s interested in me then they’ll be pretty much interested in where I am from because that is where I enjoy all my inspiration from.
You wrote the song ‘Superhero’ about your childhood fantasy about being a superhero. If you could be any superhero who will it be?
You know I think Superman has got it pretty good. He can do pretty much everything he’s a bit boring in the fact that you can’t do anything if you’re Superman unless you got the briefs on but he’s pretty much got a sweet deal, other than that Spiderman. Spiderman wins all day.
How did you come up with the name ‘Devil in the Distance’ for your album?
It’s sort of me looking at stuff that happened or bad stuff that I’ve done in certain respects, it’s the devil in me. It’s me looking back on myself and thinking about what’s influenced me towards certain decisions in my life.
So are you an angel now?
Far from it! There’s just a little bit more distance. In fact ‘Devil in the Distance’ was actually a lyric from one of the guys in my group Pixal and I’ve always loved that lyric so I just sort of incorporated it I said ‘Yeah, mate I’m stealing that…’ And he was like ‘Yeah have it, I love that!’
So he was OK with you stealing that?
Well I just said that line is what I want my album to be called, and he said I was so honest and I said no I’m trying to tell you that I’m stealing it whether you like it or not. No he was all too happy to let the line be the title for my album he was over the moon with that.
What a great friend! Have you thanked him yet?
I thank him all the time, the thing about my group, I don’t know if I’m just bias but I go around feeling that I’m amongst the best group in the country at least. So they’re like that’s great, you’re really at the top of your game, you’re a great rapper so I find it quite easy to get inspiration from those guys so I love it.
What should we be expecting from your new album? What sounds will we be hearing?
Bananas sort of crazy sounding filth driven nutness that is my life! It has its high moments it has its low moments. I’m not in one mind frame all the time, one day I’m feeling like peanuts the next day I’m feeling like grapes and the album reflects that it was really much the mood I was in. Is there any track your particularly proud of?
I got a song called First Born when you first hear it it sounds like a song about my mum but it’s not it was a very turbulent time with her and my relationship but I really hate the song I can’t stand listening to it but not because it’s a bad song just because there’s things in there that are a bit too close to me. It’s like ouch! I don’t even know why I wrote that. It hits me in bad places so I try not to listen to it but if it does that to me then I most be writing something right because it gets the emotion out of me. It is one of my favourites because I think I excelled myself there.
For the album you have teamed up with the best of Britain’s hip hop talent, is there anyone else you would like to work with?
Ghostface Killah all day! It’s really good for me at the moment if not Ghostface Marilyn Manson because I’m twisted and evil really! He got me listening to Hollywood again. It’s got a song called Indisposable teens that song runs a chill through my body! That’s a serious serious song.
In the video ‘Superhero’ it shows you running around in a cape was that your idea?
No, absolutely not! It Was some chap named Dave from a company called Poison Pen he came to us with the idea, it wasn’t too far from what we were thinking. We really liked what he had to say all his ideas and we were like great we should really run with this. It was a pretty cool move, the eye patch and the mask thing was really crap, it was really itchy around my eyes and all sorts. Jack took a bullet, Jack took a couple for the team that day like he had to wear a big wrestling mask well, when I say big it’s quite tiny and Jack’s not the smallest guy on the planet so he had to squeeze his face into this mask thing and later on we had to eat Pot Noodles and there was no kettle so we had to use the hot water from the tap and the peas were like stone but we ate that and I respect him highly for that!
What was the public’s reaction when they saw you with your capes and masks walking down the street?
When we were in Camden it was pretty cool, everyone was relatively drunk and so were we and everything kind of worked out alright, the next thing in Hammersmith that sucked. Somebody threw something at me and I just had a little diva moment, well I wouldn’t say it was a diva moment but people were throwing stuff at me in the street and I got really mad. People aren’t very sensible, a person by themselves are pretty cool when you get a group they turn into idiots. The general public they’re a bit weird! They get as bit excited sometimes.