Mezz: Decades in the Driver’s Seat

The first time Mez packed his car and drove from, Raleigh to LA in late 2014, he did so propelled by the unshakeable notion Dr. Dre would need him there.

Mez had, flown to California a few weeks earlier to show Dre beats for his 2015 album “Compton”. Dre had picked him out off a crowd of nervous prospective producers waiting in a board room to see whose sound clicked, but the blessing wasn’t definitive. Hitting the gas out of Raleigh’s South-side, Mez didn’t have a contract or even a confirmation. He’d make the “Compton” cut. When all was said and done, the 33-year-old multihyphenate appeared on three out of the record’s 16 tracks and had songwriting credits on 12 — the most of any featured writer.

It’s been nearly a decade since the acclaimed “Compton” dropped, and Mez’s career stands on much more than just faith and a “Most Likely to Be a Star” senior superlative now. He directed the video for J. Cole’s 2019 single “MIDDLE CHILD,” securing his first-ever professional credit with a treatment implicating culture vultures that has nearly 300 million YouTube views. Work with Cole turned into collaborations with Isaiah Rashad, SiR, and eventually, a creative agency called HEIRS where Mez could hub his diverse projects.

Currently, Mez resides in LA full-time, in an apartment where natural light bathes a full production set-up in a recording space far from the refashioned “closet in which” he began his career. It’s where he’s writing a new mixtape, due April 19, and a long-germinating debut LP set for release this year. His smooth, sun-baked sound boasts the type of Southern “it” factor that reveals itself while cruising in the car — music suited to literally move you.

Mez last made a mixtape at a completely different phase of life, just before the “drastic” 2014 road trip to secure “Compton”. He credits the experience in the recording gauntlet under Dre’s watchful eye with establishing his present studio ethic: nimble, involved, and resolute in his “Jedi Training.” The whole locking-in part happens naturally when Mez senses he’s building something exceptional.

Although Mez regularly employs incisive metaphors to describe his creative process, his most vivid begins with a marble.” Maybe it’s a rhyme-scheme, a sneaker design or a movie pitch. Once he’s cupping the cool glass, he wraps it with proverbial yarn, vibrant layers of consideration spooling around the core idea. It’s about expanding without solidifying, establishing a sustainable path for imagination both supple and sturdy enough for others like him to grab their keys and follow.

“If I build the systems the right way,” Mez says, “I can just do my favorite part.” That is to say: gather every one of his marbles, and never stop looking for more.