Features : With “Pablo,” MOB Flexx flexes his musicality in rap to a Latin vibe

In the three years since he has gotten serious about music, MOB Flexx — Malaquii D’mac Bams — reckons he has written more than 200 songs. He’s 19!

Just recently recording at Quad Studios, MOB has recorded 17 songs in 12 hours. He is ahead of his time. With his versatility in his music, the engineers sometimes stop to look and ask, “Who are you?” while presenting numerous flows and styles of music.

His latest song, “Pablo,” shows his versatility and his inventiveness. It is trap lyrics set to a Spanish melody using guitars, trumpets and pianos. 

“I wanted it to be like a good-vibe song that you could play at parties,” he said. It started out as a secondary song to another one, “Pioneer,” but “Pablo” was “just a different vibe that I was trying to bring to people.”

The lyrics are straight up, explicit trap, but presented in rap that flows with the Spanish rhythms, they come off as sardonic and amusing rather than grim, and the overall sound is fun.

“It’s definitely a trap/drill type of song,” he said. “The Spanish sound is because when I first started music again three years ago, I was always drawn to Spanish guitar beats. So, when I first heard the beat, I loved how the sound evolved and I was like, ‘Yeah, I can make something fire with this.’”

He sums up that line of thinking with, “This is gonna be a hit.” 

As for the brass, the piano and the strings, “I definitely do that for a more international sound. I like having a different array of music.”

Most of what he has out, including six songs so far this year, is rap, but the beats, the music, is different on all of them, and the vibe and force of the rap itself varies with the beats, instrumentation and melodies.

“Rewind,” though, the track he released just before “Pablo,” is a modern hip-hop/R&B song. He and the producer went with a more R&B sound with that one, and there is more like that coming soon.

“I consider myself to be genreless. So, I dabble in every type of sound that I possibly can so I could just expand myself and not stay in a box. I always try to switch it up as much as possible.”

Then there is the feeling and sentiment of a song, too. “Rewind” is a love-gone-bad song, but “pain music that you could relate to.”

“Yeah, ‘Rewind’ is a heartbreak song. I was going through it with a female that I had relations with, and I knew other people would feel the way I felt while displaying it musically.”

He is just starting to put out a lot of music. He may have gotten serious in 2020, but that’s when Covid got serious, too. 

Plans for this year include “MadHouse,” a song that he categorizes as “dark pop,” inspired by the music of Sub Urban, who he was listening to a year ago, “I like how different his sound is and that made me mess with his music.”

“I wanted to try something different like that.” He has the song written but hasn’t recorded it yet. He says that will be scheduled to drop mid-next year.

“That track will be slightly different than any music I have ever made.”

This year includes two EPs that he says will also expand his sound, “so people can hear different sides of me,” but right now he wants to focus on the songs he has out.

One of the EPs will have seven tracks and the other six. One will be called Madness Over Beats — M.O.B, of course.

The other is Music Over Madness, or M.O.M, because its songs were picked by his Mom.

Both EPs will be set to drop on Halloween. 

Growing up, MOB has always been around and in tune with his music side, as he played a number of instruments such as violin, trombone, piano, and tuba. His mother was an artist, so, memorizing lyrics became second nature. 

Unfortunately his Mom was an orphan and life was undeniably difficult. She used music to cope. Her son was her gift and since his birth she knew music was the reason. She always says, “You are God’s gift to me” and her gift to the world.

Back when he was 7 or 8, when he went by Macnificent and had not yet adopted MOB Flexx as his artist name, he appeared at The Apollo Theater in New York and performed at various clubs and bars. Then came middle school, high school, and basketball, until Covid put an end to that, and music returned.

“This year I’m really pushing myself harder,” he said. In addition to the music he has already written, he is still writing as many as three songs a day.

“Amongst my peers, they call me a one-man MOB. Malaquii’s the name. It’s biblical. This is my destiny.”

Stay connected to MOB Flexx and his destiny on all platforms for new music, videos, and social posts.

Website
Spotify
YouTube
Instagram
TikTok