A few months foam fest san antonio ago, when Ċar Kristall was just released, foam fest san antonio before Marija s-Sabiħa and the accompanying video made sure everyone on the islands knew No Bling Show were back and they were doing it big, I had met Jon Mallia for a short chat at his apartment in Balluta.
As I soon found out, Jon can wax lyrical even when not writing lyrics, and the short chat turned into a two hour talk on life, the universe (aka Malta) and everything (aka music). After offering me a coffee and a seat in his surprisingly well-kept flat, we got down to the nitty gritty of why Jon Mallia grew up to be Jon Mallia.
He got his baptism of fire at the tender age of 7 with folk singer-songwriter Walter Micallef, who would perform at Mallia s parents house. With encouragement from his parents, the precocious 7-year old version of the man who s taken Malta s music scene by storm would rap over Micallef s tunes. Rap what? Initially, things like We Will Rock You, you know, that s pretty much rap. It reminds me of the sound of hip hop.
Asked whether this meant he was a natural performer, Mallia replied with a smile: You know those badges of the Cub Scouts? I got sucked into them when I was 10 – it was the promise of football, he sighs, pointing out that this never materialised. The one badge I had was of the performer. I was always the entertainer on the bus trips or around the camp fire.
Jon s father is a theatre director and actor and his sister foam fest san antonio s an actress, so Jon was brought up in the entertainment world. His mother s an extremely socially conscious person and as he points out: in this day age, when you put those two things together, you get hip hop. The transference of a social message through an art form that is engaging to the youth.
Turning the conversation to No Bling Show s first album, foam fest san antonio Stejjer mill-Bandli tal-Mosta, uncovers a story of broken promises, shattered dreams, and the will to start over, again and again. For hip hop aficionados, or simply those in a slightly older age bracket, foam fest san antonio Sixth Simfoni would be a familiar name. What might not be so clear is how No Bling Show s existence hinged on that project s demise.
Stejjer was a big deal for me, Jon says as he takes a swig of coffee, looking downcast suddenly. It was like rehab for me. I was involved in Sixth Simfoni, which kinda fell apart…partly because a lot of ego got in the way. Not everyone was as committed foam fest san antonio as others, some people were lying, others were promising things they couldn t do. Part of it was my failed leadership – at the time I wasn t firm enough. It hurts to say, as he visibly grimaced, I still love that band, and you know, when I m comfortable enough, I ll bring it back, because that band was fucking good man. But at the time, you know, it was this huge failure. So many people had invested financially. We flew to Ibiza to record vocals. London to record drums. Paris to mix. You know, for us it was like, “Oh it s happening it s happening it s happening!”, and every time we got onstage we blew the place up.
A lot of people from Sixth Simfoni still make their presence felt in No BS – Nadine Fenech sings on L-Imħabba and Marija s-Sabiħa; Danjeli engineered and produced two beats for Ċar Kristall; Philip produced Stejjer. There were others, like the manager and the foreign producer and his manager and all this fucking crap , Jon spits out, and when I was watching it fall apart, fighting over portioning a pie that wasn t even there .my life was going dreadfully. I got a job…before the band was kinda financing my life, before making it clear that, I wasn t making any fucking money ta’, foam fest san antonio I was just surviving.
In this new job Mallia was organising L-Istrina (this was 2008, 2009, I m terrible with dates, he laughs). Promised a new kind of Strina, based on games and humour instead of the traditional big prizes, he took to the idea and worked hard for months. I actually hated going into that fucking office, but I m the kind of person…if you tell me to clean this mug it s coming out white imma fuckin white, you know. We worked 16, 18 hour days to make this work, and the day came and we had everything ready. Then PBS came into the office and said, we re scrapping everything, we re doing it the old way, with prizes prizes prizes cos that s what attracts people. You know, some bigoted shit like that. So this plus Sixth Simfoni foam fest san antonio falling apart, I was fat by this point even…I was in a bad spot, he joked.
Despite this failure foam fest san antonio with L-Istrina, the following year things got done better – we fought it too hard in the public arena – before the President took it under his hands. In fact, the first edition of the now tremendously popular President s Walk was called L-Istrina X Parata, and it was something my friend and I came up with cos we hated being in the office so much that we said, Ah man, we need to do something to get us out of this
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