What Nobody Knows…

On March, 1st, 1982 in St. Mary’s Hospital, Manchester, Aaron Samuels, a.k.a. Mad Max was born to 16 year old His first taste into the dynamics of music came in the form of the BRITS Performing Arts & Tech and it was here he honed his skill in the art of beat making. Still young at heart his rebelliousness took hold and BRITS would see less of him, deciding that the road was a more opportune way to get into the side of the music industry that he was attracted to. Mad Max graduated from BRITS at 16, an accomplishment to say the least but the future posed an uncertainty in the road he would take. His ambitious drive despite the obstacles proved to overcome and his ability and strength is what continually grounded Mad Max, procuring him his dreams of stardom.

Jungle music hit the UK with a blow to the chest and all who could DJ or MC did and those who couldn’t raved,

“Every Saturday I used to roll with a crew of MCs, EZRA, Easy Rider, Styla, Major, Super and Repta. We would crash everybody’s party and crowd round the mike spitting to the latest Jungle and Drum and Bass beats, I never knew what to say but I used to join in just for the love of it. I was 16”.

Fuelled by a new passion Mad Max began to immerse himself into the underground scene and in 1999 at the club formerly known as Liquid (now known as Citizens) in Wandsworth, he became a resident MC and took the alias Tango, his DJs were Valintine and Milktray, “I was over 21… loving the attention of all the girls, but I still couldn’t MC”, he laughs,

“Every week I used to MC alongside Dr. Psycho, Ill Kids, Rampage and a host of other big weights in the industry”.

Simon Says another MC saw the potential in Mad Max and helped him learn the correct way to MC. He begun to string flows together and couldn’t stop putting pen to pad and jotting lyrics whenever they came to him, Mad Max started to get the props he so deserved. He continued to perform and regular bookings saw him at Capital Club, Samantha’s and Hanover Grand, to name but a few.

It Nearly Didn’t Happen…

October 22nd 2003 saw the release of Mad Max back into the realities of the harsh, cold world, scruffy and wearing the same clothes he got arrested in,

“…I remember going to probation on Stockwell Road and people looking at me like, ‘Rah who is that guy, he looks nuts’, my brother wouldn’t even walk next to me…but being free felt good.”

With two folders of lyrics and a dream, Mad Max was uncertain about the path he would now take. He decided to enroll into South Thames College where he undertook a course in music production. There he forged a permanent friendship with a fellow student named Armagideon who at the time featured on the SW9mm album. Not only could Armagideon rhyme but he also liked Mad Max’s beats, giving him a new found confidence and reassuring his worth in the rap game. At this time Mad Max also started to gravitate to the lyrics other fellow class-mates were producing,

“when I heard them spit, they made me feel like the lyrics that I was killing prison wings with weren’t worth shit. They were talking about freedom and road. I was talking about pain and jail.”

Realizing that he had to broaden his vocabulary, he begun to write new lyrics, lyrics that would free him from the mental hold jail still had over him.