Ever since his 2014 mixtape Long Live The King and his appearance on Dr. Dre’s final album Compton, King Mez has been on the rise. Such an endorsement is bound to propel one to the next musical stratosphere. The rapper/producer/writer sat with The Boombox for the #NextUp series presented by McDonald’ to chat about his journey from being a local rapper in NC to working with Dre.
In the interview, Mez explained how Dr. Dre’s 2001 album The Chronic 2001 was Mez’s first album he owned as a child and how a stroke of good fortune led him to the legendary west coast producer as an adult – truly a full-circle experience. “There’s a producer named Dewuan Parker, who reached out to me and did a couple songs with Dre. In the back of my mind, I thought man, maybe I could work with Dre. Of course it was a shot in the dark, I live in Raleigh, NC, and there are millions of rappers in L.A., but it just ended up working out. I ended up working with him for 11 months, wrote 13 out of 16b for his album…the whole experience was life changing,” he explained.
And speaking of life changing events, the whole experience has been a whirlwind for Mez, who documented it in his song “The Shift,” a song about inevitable changes. “It’s called ‘The Shift’ because the shift in my life, the shift in time, and the shift in the way the world is changing. It’s kind of dark and has this feeling to it, but it’s royal.”
Peep the interview with The Boombox below:
Do you think King Mez is #NextUP?
