Year of The King

True story:

One day I was randomly sitting on my computer looking for something to listen to while I caught up on blog work. When I was going through the K's I was going to settle on the familiar project of Kendrick's I was bumping at the time, which was a mixtape of unreleased tracks that were making their rounds on the net. But then as I was listening to the track "Look Out For Detox" I saw a mixtape entitled "Long Live The King" by an artist named King Mez. I decided to turn that on by the recommendation of one of my homeboys and I haven't looked back since.

I live in Raleigh, NC where King Mez is from and of course I've heard nothing but great things about him. He was featured on the radio multiple times over and people, (hip-hop heads), could be heard bumping his stuff regularly. But I'm the type of person that likes to find music on his on time because what I found out is that people regularly suggest music that sucks. So to keep from listening to any and everything, I just listen to stuff on my own time. When my homeboy told me about Mez I went and downloaded all of his stuff because I support the home team by all accounts and Long Live The King was his most talked about project that I saw when I searched his name.

As I played his album I could see right away that he had the bars to back up his name. Not only that, he also had the same smooth production that I associate with the artists that I love to hear these days. So automatically I put him in the same conversation with Cole just after 6 tracks. But when the track Heart Drive came on, I was sold. Heart Drive automatically entered my favorite Hip-Hop tracks list and I've been bumping it religiously since I heard it. 

But I know who I want to be already,
People around me find that so interestin',
So they try to find themselves through me,
I don't mind, just don't forget the kid.

Something I see already,
I ain't even really did much yet,
But there's people that wanna live they whole life,
Through me already.

Ain't enough space left in my heart for you,
Ain't enough space left in my drive for you.
Gotta learn to feed yourself, I can't survive with you.

When I heard that I was sold on the fact that he acknowledges real life in his raps and that is what matters to me the most when I listen to artists. He makes music that matters and that's relevant. Every person that starts to make it a little bit in life has been in that position, hell I was, so the fact that he spit that bar or that wonderfully made beat by Tim Suby, I was just excited for his next move.

His next moved which proved to be his best one.

With his Compton feature and subsequent Dre cosign, he's poised to make a great run in 2016. With the likes of Dre, Cole, 9th Wonder and a slew of others cosigning him, (along with his inclusion on Sounds of MTV 50 Artist To Watch In 2016), he's in a great position to finally reach the masses.

I met King Mez randomly a couple of weeks after listening to Long Live The King at a bar that I didn't really want to be at one night and I didn't realize who he was until my homeboy tapped me on the shoulder and told me, I walked up to him and told him he was doing great things and to keep it up and he appreciated the few words that I had for him. I'm counting on him to stay true to himself and put out the awesome quality of tracks that he's known for by his supporters.

If I was a betting man then I would put all my chips on red and say that King Mez will be 2016's break out artist by a mile. Just sit back and watch this young man work, it's going to be a thing of beauty.