Malkovich was conceived on the Pacific island of New Caledonia by his father and his mother, then a bartender at a pub popular with escaped Nazis. She was in labor when Ayatollah Khomeini chased them from Iran during the Islamic Revolution. Malkovich was born extremely shortly thereafter in Christopher Columbus' hometown of Genoa, Italy, where he had his diapers changed regularly by Miss Italy 1978. Ronald Reagan almost bombed his elementary school in Libya, killing Colonel Qaddafi’s “daughter” instead. He moved to Los Angeles during the 1992 riots, where he heard Ice Cube's Death Certificate album, rode the Northridge Earthquake, and formed BLX, a kind of pre-internet Odd Future with more grand larceny. He left NYC a week before the Twin Towers came down, London a week before the Tube bombings, and Istanbul a week before Kurds blew up the city square. He left Jamaica two days before Hurricane Gustav, and slept on a church floor in Louisiana and ate Red Cross gumbo for three days with 300 people after losing an important backpack in Hurricane Katrina. His father hates islands. He once fell asleep on a train and woke up in Spain. His best friend is a dirty cop in Belize City whose name comes up on a Google search on Amnesty International's most wanted list. URB gave his first album Skeletons one and a half stars out of five. A kid from North Hollywood has lyrics from that album tattooed on his chest.On January 1, 2012 he gave up his home and possessions to travel indefinitely. He's currently living somewhere between Southern Africa and the South China Sea.
Click here to hear this bio in song form.
"I was a fan of Malkovich the first time I heard him. Yall know I do NOT F**K AROUND with my cosigns.” -DJ HOUSE SHOES
"the new face of underground grime... this guy is owning everyone in the current scene, and you better believe it" -HITTHEFLOOR
"Malkovich fits into a niche being carved out by a new breed of rappers." -EARBITS.COM
"Malkovich is a super duper greasy middle easty emcee" -KING TECH, WAKE UP SHOW
"P-P-P-Premier" -DJ PREMIER, while spinning "Bedbugs"
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Listen/download: GREAT EXPECTATIONS by Malkovich Music
GREAT EXPECTATIONS, released 1/1/2013 (download) | “A story about the gap between our dreams and our lives”
featuring Sum, Ali Abnormal, Chris Clarke, Gotham Green, Core Rhythm and Micah McKee and production by Leggo, Evilldewer, Josh The Goon, Speakerbomb, Becoming Phill, X-Man, Bei Ru, Computer Jay, Yamin Semali, Core Rhythm and Mike Beats“Genre-resuscitating…” -HitTheFloor.co.uk
“feels like you’re being confronted with power…” -ThisIsJohnBook
“Malkovich seems to impress me with every project he puts out…” -Okayplayer.com
“LA is a city of shiftless nomads. Malkovich might take the crown. Great Expectations could be his coronation” -syffal.com
”In the hands of a less talented MC, this type of thematic diversity might crumble chaotically” -Earbits.com
“Showing a rare maturation most emcees never attain” -Audiocred.com
“a fierce brand of no-nonsense lyricism that walks a tight rope between stark realism, fantasy, loyalty and alienation… beats that move back and forth effortlessly from Arabic rhythms, to acid jazz to 70′s soul to 90′s old school.” -ViragoMag
”Great Expectations is the culmination of a lot of hard work and the realization of his abilities as an emcee. He’s got a unique perspective, and he’s found a great balance between smart, big picture analysis and honest and emotional introspection. There have been roughly a million hip hop albums to come out of L.A.. It’s not easy to release an album in this day and age that both pays homage to that past and still sounds fresh, but Malkovich has done that here” -ScratchedVinyl -
LETHAL VICE EP released 1/30/2012 (download) | produced by P.U.D.G.E. (except for “Flatfoots” produced by Chris Clarke)
featuring Sum, Chris Clarke and Ali Abnormal
“sounds like Beverly Hills looks” -ClusterFunkCollectiveThose were The Hot Days. August and September with Pudge at my Palms apartment/sauna - hardwood floors, wooden roof. I threw away a lot of white tees with industrial yellow armpit stains. But we stayed recording. A homey or three would casually swim through to drop verse before running down the stairs sweating and screaming, shirts in hand. But mostly it was just us working on tracks, or the eternal business of staying afloat in L.A.. What day does the landlord really cash the rent check (the 10th)? What are the chances of the couch having magically sprouted some more change between the cushions in the last two days? Are those dudes outside with the bad tattoos still sitting on my car? A couple times a day we’d hop off the merry-go-round for pasta, blunts and TV. Lethal Weapon ended up in the DVD player for almost a month, and we started noticing similarities between Mel and Danny’s characters and us. He’s the black guy, I’m the white guy. He’s more laid-back, I’m more aggro. And Pudge and I had inadvertently become partners in the task of getting by in Los Ankkhheles. So we ran with it. We don’t give a shit about cops (although I don’t mind em at times). But the metaphor works. Every now and then we gotta swing through and lay the law down.
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AYATOLLAH PRESLEY mixtape released 3/16/2011 (download) | mixed and presented by DJ House Shoes
featuring P.U.D.G.E., Sum, Gotham Green and Quickie Mart, Mawnstr, Prince Po of Organized Konfusion, Dibia$e, Jonwayne, Chris Clarke, Killer Reese One of King Fantastic, Omni, E Reece, Monk McNasty, Yelloblac, Felix, ABCDEFG a.k.a. Chuck Chilla, Voice, Waes One and DJ Grazzhoppa
a 22-track, mixtape-style effort heavy on experimental, banging production and equally out-there, technically awesome, raps” PotholesInMyBlog.com -
“BANKRUPTCY”, released 3/16/2009 (download)
featuring ABCDEFG a.k.a. Chuck Chilla, Chris Clarke, Sum, P.U.D.G.E., Felix, DJ Grazzhoppa, 2B, Ali Abnormal, Tony EQ, MOLMan, Konfident, Nocturnal Ron, Badtouch, Otherwize, Pity Patrone, Black Silver of the Analog Brothers, Omni and Lodeck
“A blending of killer old school beats and modern day rap politics”
“About as close as Acid rap aggression and Backpack rap lyricism come without really falling into either genre” -RapReviews.com -
“SICKSTEENS”, released 7/1/2006 (download)
featuring P.U.D.G.E., Chris Clarke, Ali Abnormal, 2B, Sum, J Thorn, Omni, Black Silver, Otherwize, Sklim Milx, Sach of The Nonce, Felix, Voice, Fat Hed, Montage One, DJ Midas, Mazzi of S.O.U.L. Purpose, Yamin Semali of Clan Destined, Reverb and Pity Patrone
A collage of old school rap beats, the funk and soul oldies that were sampled to create them, and non-stop, off-the-cuff verses from some of the most underrated lyricists of our time. Sicksteens is loosely based on a wishlist Malkovich put together of beats both classic and forgotten that he wanted to rap over for a mixtape. From this foundation, West LA-based dj and music archivist Burnie Nowax went to work, looping and extending interludes, bookending rap tracks with their dusty originals and completely recreating certain beats from scratch to create a soundscape strong enough to support lyrics from end to end. Holding up his end of the bargain, Malkovich sent his entire rhyme family – the trifecta of the BLX, VJC and Halifax All-Star crews, and an assortment of emcees from California to New York – into thie mic booth, with orders to come up with as many verses as possible. The result unites three generations of funk on a mixtape that is so much more: the musical business card of a collective, a non-stop party on a disc, and a celebration of the art of hip-hop – samples, lyrics and mad, mad crew. Old soul rare groove meets old school hip-hop meets new school rhyme rumble. 20 songs. 21 emcees This is Sicksteens. -
“SKELETONS” released 7/3/2005 (download) | featuring Sklim Milx, Ali Abnormal and Chris Clarke, and production from Earganic, ABCDEFG a.k.a. Chuck Chilla, DJ Noble, DJ Obi and Nocturnal Ron
“Had Radiohead, Portishead or any other head recorded Skeletons, it would be hailed as an ambitious attempt to push the boundaries of hip hop” -Okayplayer.com
An audio novel of an old soul’s first 26 years of life as a young man on Earth at the turn of the millennium, the sixteen-track, hour-long opus is the bare bones of life, boiled down to the bare essentials of hip-hop music: raw, atmospheric beats and masterful, groundbreaking verses. Malkovich is an original: born overseas and raised in the Middle East, Mediterranean, North Africa and Europe, he’s a world traveler with a writer’s soul and a foreigner’s viewpoint. Skeletons is not an album about the rap life, or the drug life, or the club life, or the fast life. This is an album about real life - that funny, scary, happy, confusing, painful, glorious thing we keep waking up to. -
GERSHWIN BLX, VEGANZ WANT BEEF, released 7/1/2011 (download)
featuring Black Silver of the Analog Brothers, Otherwize & Zig E.S.P. of Blak Forest, Chris Clarke, the VJC, Sleazy E, Faxx of 2000 Crows“Beef is on the menu, hence the sometime sound reversion to something torture chamber-like, several thousand miles below civilisation…” (mrblunt.com)
After a year or two of performing complex crew tracks ten deep for pennies and thoroughly getting on each other’s nerves, we were tired. Tired of each other, tired of unity, tired of the studio, tired of underground hip hop and all its bullshit… just tired. A few members had left the camp and being broke wasn’t cool anymore. G.B.L.X. needed a new release, but the complicated song structures of Sunch Punch almost drove us crazy, so MOL simply revved up some beats, booked some studio time, and invited his boys to come bust, and this time the Gershwin rulebook was out the window. Verses were as long as they wanted to be, beats were as bassy as they could be, and where Sunch Punch had its occasional moments of mercy, these songs were nothing but blood and bones. Veganz Want Beef is the album where G.B.L.X. showed the world its fangs, and you either love it or you love to hate it, in which case we probably hate you too. Pretty funny, coming from a guy who only eats fish and chicken. -
GERSHWIN BLX, SUNCH PUNCH, released 7/1/2000 (download)
“Continuing in the lines of the West Coast legends before them, Gershwin BLX brings a solid project that may not be recommended if you’re claustrophobic. In true battle royale style these mc’s surround and suffocate.” (erasoul.com)
“The outlook is often a contorted menace that still unlocks an immediate accessibility, and the labouring enterprise of BLX is an independent triumph…The ultimate sucker jab; tough tracks and authoritative voices linking for a prize fighter of an album, a crowd-pleaser as well as a seemingly pre-programmed machine intent on destroying.” (mrblunt.com)
“…A thoroughly impressive album…” (altrap.com)
“…One of my favorite albums of the year…” (rapreviews.com)
“…An example of hip-hop at it’s best…” (thecyberkrib.com)It was late 1999 and we had sold VocabuDrab Sessions all over California and blown all the money on Jack In The Box. Some of the guys were tired of being known for ‘sensitive’ songs like “L.A. Xpress” and “Scrub Day”, and the shows were starting to roll in - time for a new album. We wanted to make an album for the underground that looked and sounded like a major-label release - no toilet-paper covers and ski-slope recordings. By this time, Gershwin BLX was ten men, and when everyone is living at Mom’s house, it makes writing together kinda tough. So we invaded parks and recreation rooms, leaving trails of empty bottles and Black ‘N Mild wrappers in our wake as we wrote, wrote and rewrote the lyrics to the ultimate crew album. Recording was split between the home studio of Quest from the Barber Shop and Racehorse Studios in Culver City, supervised by NacNud the Lizard King, who would regale us with dirty stories for $35 an hour. A few months, countless Record Town checks and a few arrests later we had an album so full of testes and testosterone that we weren’t sure if anyone would be able to listen to it all the way through without exploding. Back in the VocabuDrab era, one of ABCDEFG’s many anonymous freestyle rants had born the word Sunch, which Felix later explained was a combination of ‘sun’ and ‘crunch’ (“sun…crunch……suuuuuunch”). Later, ‘punch’ was added for no reason and voila - we had an album name. Sunch Punch was first released on CD in summer 2001 and we have sold thousands of copies across the world. An underground West Coast classic … ask around. Featuring: absolutely nobody.
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GERSHWIN BLX, VOCABUDRAB SESSIONS 96-97, released 12/31/1999 (download)
In the summer of 1995, three high school drunks decided to form a group called Ballistix. There was Felix, a.k.a. Mr. Klumbz, a Cali native and owner of the Timber Finger. There was Mayhem a.k.a. Malkovich, a young immigrant fresh from the deodorant-free side of the globe. There was The Pessimist, who had recently moved to L.A. from Brooklyn, NY for the weed. Together they brought the strong, intelligent raps with a heavy dose of alcoholic headbutt. Around this time Chuck Chilla, a talented hippie from round the way, was drafted into the group along with a couple of other new members, and Ballistix began recording night and day at the VocabuLab, Chuck’s castle hideaway in the mountains of Westwood. A few months later we also started recording with a beatmaker we shall only refer to as Drab. The setups were no-frills - faded four-tracks, Drum Crazy loops, bedroom recordings, sometimes even being forced to record the rhymes to an entire song featuring up to five MCs in one take (see “Fam”). A year and change later, Mayhem had changed his name to Crag (“too ‘battle-MC’), Chuck Chilla had become ABCDEFG (“too… hippie”) and Ballistix was now Gershwin Crew (“sounds too much like ‘Blistex’”). Felix had bounced to Atlanta to go to college and hook up with the Vinyl Junkies, and Pessimist returned to Brooklyn. But we also finally had a bunch of songs that we actually kinda liked, so those songs became VocabuDrab Sessions 96-97. VD first emerged as a tape pressing on New Year’s Day 1999, and in 2001 we remastered it to CD to observe the death of the audio cassette. Our old school fans swear by this record, and it’s recommended for anyone who wants to hear what we sounded like before fame, power and money corrupted us.
