The British MC has amassed millions of streams for his careworn catalogue, recorded on a prison phone. Now, his new single addresses prisoners’ mental health

In November 2022, one year into an 11-year prison sentence for firearm charges, Birmingham rapper Marnz Malone was hanging out with his friends during “sosh”, or association time, on his wing. One of them, a boxer, was preaching the benefits of fitness training, explaining how he’d improvised an exercise using some equipment he had. Malone noticed the man living in the cell next to him showing a keen interest and asking questions. At the time, he thought little of it.

“We didn’t know that he’d just shown the man how to kill himself,” Malone says on a Skype call. “It traumatised so many of us.”