MAL€K is from kind of everywhere and has been exposed to music from all those different kinds of everywhere, and that is why this rebranded rapper is launching his new name with a country song, “Toast to That.”
“A big inspiration right now for me is country,” he said. “Country itself is evolving in the music industry, and I think one of the biggest pioneers for that evolution is Morgan Wallen. He’s inspired me to do a little bit of country pop.”
“Toast to That” is a sweet, acoustic barroom ballad with a soft but thumping country beat and MAL€K’s baritone voice singing about finding “happiness inside of a whiskey glass.”
“I wanted to change the dynamic of my music,” he said. “It was me being multi-genred and being able to go to pop and indie and country. And there’s definitely going to be more of me venturing into those genres, for sure.”
He has been putting out music for five years but most of them are dated 2024, when his rebranding began, and 2025. His music includes three 35-track albums. Yes, 35 tracks each: The Never Ending Story, The Never Ending Story II, and The Never Ending Story III: The Encore. There are also a six-track EP, The Christmas Story, and a dozen singles.
“I went by a whole different name, Kay Malik, and then I rebranded myself into MAL€K because I had a better understanding of where I wanted to go.”
Where he wants to go is everywhere. He is half Irish from his mother’s side. The other half of his heritage, his father, as he puts it in his official bio, was “straight outta Compton, a man molded by the streets, gangbanging, drug slanging, in and out of prison.”
Everywhere he has lived, he has lived the experience of the music: Houston, Utah, Los Angeles, and now Las Vegas.
And his mother wasn’t just Irish. She was Irish-California and Islander Irish, meaning Hawaii, where she spent a lot of time, and that, too, and its musical influences passed through to MAL€K.
“I’ve lived in the country, in Houston. I lived in Utah. As a kid, I lived in Los Angeles, in a little bit of that gangsta rap area in Compton and where it’s very poppy. I’ve experienced all these different genres based off of my own living experiences.”
The variety is evident in a random sampling of six tracks in addition to “Toast to That,” which is itself obviously country, but with hip-hop echoing in the background.
“The Story of Phoebe” is hip-hop all the way, “Night @ Sante” is like pop rap, “Heartbreaks & Relapsez” is funky pop, “On My Mind” is country again.
And then there is “Bugsy & Meyers,” a gangster rap song named for the two Jewish mobsters who were instrumental in making Las Vegas what it is. Fitting, he says, because that is where he lives now.
The never-ending story of MAL€K (“That saga, there’s one, two and three, and there’s going to be more.”) includes a dream of audiences.
The music will be multi-genred, he said, and tell stories from his multi-genred life and his musical perspectives. The dream continues with him performing for an audience that includes fans of all these genres.
“Like, dude, these guys are from the streets. These guys are from Simi Valley, listening to Justin Bieber, and these guys are from the country. These guys are Islanders, and they are all unified, like, ‘Yo, this is a jam!’”
The hundred-plus tracks he has out display much of this variety already, and out of it he chose “Toast to That” to publicize the artist persona of MAL€K.
“It is clean, it’s catchy, it has good content, and it has a good, valuable message. It’s a new-country song, and it’s relatable to most everybody.”
Evolve with him and connect to MAL€K on all platforms for new music, videos, and social posts.
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