Mertz (Burlington, VT) – Q&A Interview

Tell us a little about yourself. Where you are from? How long have you been making Hip Hop?

I am a producer & lyricist from Burlington, Vermont.  I am not a rapper. That title doesn’t accurately represent what I do.  As a lyricists, my main objective is providing listeners with subject matter that expresses my thoughts & is based in my reality. I’m more about creatively sharing my experiences than bragging & rapping about fads & trends.

I’ve been making Hip-Hop music since 2001, originally as a member of the group Present Rhymes.  I’ve released 3 projects so far & I am just getting started.  My first effort was a solo release in 2009 called, “The Rise Above It EP.” In 2010 I worked as executive producer on fellow Vermont-emcee Aleck Woogmaster’s debut “The Woogmatic LP”.

I left Vermont in 2010 & relocated to Providence, Rhode Island to unite with my Present Rhymes group mates & we released our debut album, “Livin’ The Mission” in 2011.  Since then, the group has been less productive than I had hoped, so I made the decision to seriously focus on building a career as a solo artist. My first full-length solo album, “The Good in The Bad” is definitely my best work thus far.

What influences you in making Hip Hop?

I am influenced by the world around me & artists of all mediums.  I try to surround myself with creative people who can’t just sit still & let time pass; people who feel an undying drive to create something.  I have friends who are artistic in many different ways, all of whom share a common desire to contribute their art to the world.  By surrounding myself with creativity, I am inspired to continue to create & in turn, I inspire others to do the same.

Musically, I am heavily influenced by other musicians who make truthful music.  I have & always will identify with art that is based in truth.  The music industry is over saturated with artists who create facades to hide behind, projecting an image that they think will help them make money.  It’s both refreshing & inspiring when I see artists who are not afraid to be themselves & make art that is personal to them.  Artists like that inspires me to make music that is real & personal to me.

Describe your music, and what separates you from other MCs?

I would describe my music as emotionally charged Boom-Bap.  It’s definitely a unique sound in today’s music scene.  There are certain elements of it that pay homage to the pioneers that came before me, & at the same time, there are experimental elements that express my individualism as an artist.

I’ve always felt like my generation has constantly existed in a transitional time period.  We’ve seen so many advances in technologies & transformations in musical styles & popular culture.  I think living in this never-ending period of transition has manifested itself in my music sounding like a mixture of old school classic Hip-Hop mixed with new age experimental Hip-Hop.

What separates me from other emcees is the realism & honesty that I put into my music.  I use storytelling as a tool to make points & make people think about topics that are important to me, but even when I use characters to tell stories, I am talking about things that I’ve witnessed or experienced in

my time on this world.  Another aspect of my lyricism that sets me apart from other emcees is that I make positive music.  I have a tendency to make music that is appropriate for all ages & even though I do use profanity, I use it sparingly, giving it a stronger impact when I choose to use it.

Who have you collaborated with? Who would you like to collab with in the near future?

Thus far, I have kept my collaborative work very minimal.  I have worked with a handful of Vermont-based artists whom I know personally & respect creativity including: Aleck Woogmaster, Zach Crawford, Habit & a few others.

One of my favorite collaborative experiences I’ve had was while working on my first project, “The Rise Above It EP.”  I recorded a violinist that I had met while performing at an open mic on a song that I had produced.  This was the first time I had ever collaborated with an instrumentalist & it was an incredible learning experience for me.  The violinist definitely added a dynamic to the song that I had not achieved myself & it took the song to the next level.

In the future, I would like to collaborate with more instrumentalists & singers, as I think they provide elements that I can’t create myself.  As far as emcees go, I want to expand my network & eventually would like to collaborate with bigger artists. Currently I’m at a point where I’m focused on building with people who I already know & respect.

I definitely want to collaborate with the following like-minded artists in the near future: The Aztext (VT), Andy Lugo (VT), The Lynguistic Civilians (VT), Chachi Carvalho (RI), Cynikl (NY), Political Animals (CT) & (X)hristopher Holmes (MA).

Your definition of “Underground Hip Hop”?

Underground Hip-Hop is a complex term to define.  On it’s surface, it’s used to describe an artists exposure level; underground artists being those that are not well-known outside of their niches.  Yet, the term also has a deeper meaning when we look closer at the artists we describe as “underground” & begin to see how the term also qualitatively describes the music they make.

On the whole, artists that are considered “underground” make music that is more truthful & meaningful than mainstream artists.  I believe this is largely due to the fact that underground artists make music to express themselves & they are not pressured by outside forces to make music that will appeal to the masses.

When we think about the term “Underground Hip-Hop” in this way, it takes on a much deeper meaning than just describing an artists’ exposure level because it’s actually describing the music & not the artist.  To me, “Underground Hip-Hop” is a beautiful form of artistic self-expression & it is vastly different than Rap music.  “Underground Hip-Hop” is powerful soul-music that describes an artists thoughts & feelings about the world around them.

A good way for me to describe the difference in the way I view “Underground Hip-Hop” & Rap music is to use the analogy of Rappers vs. Lyricists.  Rappers are verbally skilled at rhyming words & stringing

them together in a flowing pattern.  Lyricists, too, are verbally skilled at rhyming words & flowing them together, but the main difference is that Lyricists say something that has a deeper value & meaning with their rhymes, where Rappers are just rhyming.

To me, “Underground Hip-Hop” is poetic & truthful expression that is based on life & love & has a deeper meaning than it may seem from the surface.

Production wise, who are your influences? Who does your production?  And who would you like to work with?

I’ve always been heavily influenced by producers who are also instrumentalists.  Some of my favorite producers are Ant (of Atmosphere), Classified, Sabzi (Blue Scholars/Common Market), Eligh (Living Legends) & DiViNCi (Solillaquists of Sound).  I love the depth that they all build in their instrumentals.  I also feel like, though they all have used samples in their production, they add so many other elements to their beats that they truly create something of their own, rather than just depending on the sample to lead the melody.

I do most of my own production myself.  I have been producing just as long as I have been writing lyrics.  On my first 2 projects, I did all the production with my long time homie/DJ/business partner, Rico (collectively, we are Mertz & Sun Productions).  I didn’t work with any other producers until my latest album.

I produced 5 out of the 10 songs on “The Good in The Bad” & worked with 3 other producers that I know personally & met while living in Vermont.  Nastee (producer of “Life & Love”) is the most well known producer I worked with.  He’s also a seasoned audio engineer who has platinum plaques on his wall for working with Mobb Deep, Big Pun, T.I. & more.  He’s been a mentor to me for as long as I’ve known him, & we mixed my entire album together at his Brooklyn studio last year.

The other 2 producers that I worked with on my new album are both up-&-coming artists from Vermont; SkySplitterInk (producer of “Move On” & “Beautiful Something”) & SXMPLELIFE (producer of “Madame Butterfly” & “I Know It Well”).  Both have been working towards making music their soul occupation in recent years & they have been working with a lot of really talented up-&-coming artists as of late.  Look out for these two to be making some big noise in the near future.

I feel the same way about working with producers as I do about collaborating with other emcees, I don’t have aspirations to work with big name artists right now.  I’m more focused on working with the musicians that I have met along my way so far & come to respect.  I would like to do work with the following producers: Loupo, Es-K, E-Train & Touchphonics, all of whom are from Vermont & do amazing work.  I would also like to collaborate with live bands more than anything.

Any current or future projects you are promoting?

I am currently working on 2 collaborative projects that I am really excited about.  One is with a guitarist that I have been life-long friends with & it’s completely different than any music I have worked on thus far.  We started producing beats together with him playing his guitar & me drumming on my MPC.  The

music we have made has much more of a live feel because each beat we’ve produced started from us just jamming out together.  Even though it’s still very young, I’m really excited about this project!

The other project I am working on is an EP with an incredibly gifted producer that I met while living in Providence, RI by the name of Wattz.  Of all the producers I know personally, Wattz is by far the best.  He blessed me with some beats to write to & I’m really excited about the project, not only because his beats are the best I’ve ever written to, but also because this is the first project that I’ll work on as just a lyricist.

Can you give us a brief description of the creative process of “The Good In The Bad” Album LP? Also/ what was the idea or concept description about your Album Art Cover.

In the process of making “The Good in The Bad” I pushed myself to do as many things differently as possible.  On the production side of things, I backed away from using melodic samples & I gravitated back towards producing original compositions.  I put a major focus on my drum sounds & grooves, as this was the first project I produced since switching to using an MPC as my main sequencer.

I also challenged myself to fully build my instrumentals before writing lyrics to them.  In the past I would have started writing lyrics before the instrumentals were finished & consequently, I would usually copy large portions of my beats to make them longer.  I think this new approach led me to having more interesting song structures & making my instrumentals stand on their own.

On the songwriting side, this was my first project that featured guest producers, allowing me to focus more on my lyrics.  I also put more effort into thinking through my song concepts before diving in & writing lyrics.  I did a lot more storytelling on this album than I have done in the past & I think the result is much more entertaining for the listener.  By telling stories, I was still able to speak on subjects that are important to me, but by using characters as vehicles to present larger points, I was able to make my points resonate more with listeners.  On the whole, I was able to step outside of my comfort zone & continue making music that is true to what I believe while not talking about myself as much or my experience directly.

The album artwork was created from a photo taken of me that was originally for a photography project that my friend, Jayme Allard, did.  It was shot on film & developed in a darkroom, but the process she used to develop it created the messy & partially developed effects.  When I was putting together the album artwork I chose those photos because I thought they represented the idea that I was presenting something positive out of the madness of the world.  I really like the photo on the back cover because there is a pocket of light that looks like it’s sitting inside my hands.  It looks like I’m presenting this tiny pocket of light amongst the mess of reality.

Where can we find your music and info?

You can find me at MertzMusic.com or on Facebook/Twitter/Soundcloud/etc as @MertzMusic.  If you connect with my music, the best way to stay up to date with news, shows & new releases is to sign up for my email list, which you can do at my website.  My email list is comprised of my biggest supporters & I like to show my appreciation for them by giving them the first look & listen to my new material.  Sign up at MertzMusic.com

Any shout outs?

I’d like to give a shout out to every artist who is making music that is real to them & isn’t afraid to let who they really are show through their art.  The world needs more honest artists.  Also, shout out to everyone who knows what they want to achieve & isn’t too lazy to pursue it.  My sincerest gratitude goes out to everyone who has supported my music thus far.  It’s people like you who make it possible for me to continue chasing my dream & make me feel like the art that I make matters to others.  Peace & Love!