Today we had an exclusive chance to interview Meech Mercury:
Raptology: What is your legal name and age?
Meech Mercury: My real name is Demetrious Dabadee and I’m 24 at the moment. No I don’t know what my name means or where it’s from blame slavery.
Raptology: How did you come up with a stage name?
Meech Mercury: It started with something as cliché as checking into astrology. My sun sign is gemini and the assigned planet for gemini is the first one in our solar system Mercury. From the jump I took that as my sign was number one. From there I did more research, and the more I did the more I saw how the planet and the word related to my sign and most of all to me. You see Mercury has blazing hot days, and freezing cold nights; there’s no in between. The planet embodies passion in its purest form. Expanding on that word “Mercury” is the word mercurial. It’s a word about a person who is prone to strong and sudden shifts in there mood, something I and my music definitely embody. My favorite definition is the element mercury, which just so happens to be sleek and beautiful to look at, but a deadly poison to humans. Do what you want with that last bit if information.
Raptology: Where are you from?
Meech Mercury: That’s always an odd question for me to answer since I spent the majority of my life always moving around. I’ve lived at almost every social level of American society. That might play into why my music stylistically doesn’t stick to one thing. To answer the question straight though I spent most of my childhood in Chicago and my teenage years in Atlanta.
Raptology: Where are you now?
Meech Mercury: I’m still in Atlanta, I travel between here and New York mostly but home base is still Atlanta. I hope to leave America and live somewhere else when it’s all said and done though. Maybe somewhere in Europe? Australia? Japan? I don’t know.
Raptology: Why did you first start making music?
Meech Mercury: Besides the obvious question of having a lot of pain on my heart that I had to get out, there was just this feeling I had whenever I would listen to my favorite songs that I could do things..better. That’s no disrespect to any of my favorite artist because I mean it in the sense that I could make songs that would heal me more effectively because I never completely related to any artist. So since I go to music for healing are started to use and learn it to heal myself and stop getting misdiagnosed.
Raptology: Who would you say inspired you most as an artist?
Meech Mercury: He’s not the most favored artist in the eye of the public but definitely Kanye West. For artist like me who like to take the genre and bend it and fuse it with others the way we do, at least in this day and age Kanye is really just the goal that you want to reach and hopefully surpass.
Raptology: Talk me through your creative process.
Meech Mercury: It’s a pretty straight forward approach, I just take situations, traumas, happiness, etc. and make them musical. I only write I don’t freestyle, but I usually do it on the spot unless I’m sent the beat outside of the studio. Honestly even then I sometimes wait until I get there, only because I like the idea of capturing the freshest and rawest emotions I have at the time. Andre 3000 said “I do think when you think too much you’re removing what’s moving.” On Kid Cudi’s song By Design and that’s a philosophy I completely agree with.
Raptology: Where and how do you work best?
Meech Mercury: Definitely in the studio, but with as few people as possible. I’d prefer me and the engineer and maybe whoever may be featured. Too many people in my space clutters my mind though. They disrupt the energy field.
Raptology: Have you heard the theory that some musicians write their best music while depressed or going through a bad time?
Meech Mercury: Of course it’s common knowledge that a lot of the best art was born from pain, however a lot of great art was born from positive things like love and happiness. The truth is that the best music, the best art, comes from passion.
Raptology: What is still your biggest challenge?
Meech Mercury: Definitely myself. Piggybacking off of the last question I suffer from pretty intense depression myself and fighting to not let those feelings take over in the worst way is a daily struggle. We push through though. We’ll be alright.
Raptology: How would you describe the music you typically create?
Meech Mercury: Honest. Probably too honest sometimes. Everything I write about comes from a real place, from real moments, from real emotions. This is more than just a career for me this is me speaking the language of my soul hoping somebody or something will speak back, or at least hear me.
Raptology: What’s the best compliment you’ve ever received about your music?
Meech Mercury: That it was like Kid Cudi’s. Like a lot of artist I don’t typically like to be compared to anyone else, especially since I heavily value originality in my art, but Cudi is one of the heroes man. He is truly one of my favorite artist and someone who comes close to what I want to embody as one myself so I’m really honored every time I hear that because it’s happened a lot of times at this point.
Raptology: What would you have done differently if you knew then what you know now?
Meech Mercury: Not a thing. No matter how painful certain moments were I’m completely in love with my journey. It’s shaped me into someone my younger self would be very proud of. I’m proud of me. I wouldn’t change a thing.
Raptology: What’s your best advice for handling criticism?
Meech Mercury: Remembering that taste is a culmination of individual experiences and circumstances and that someone’s opinion is more of a reflection of who they are than who you are. Also there’s upwards of 7 BILLION people on the planet. So what if a handful of them don’t like you? You’ll be alright I promise.
Raptology: If you could change anything about the industry, what would it be?
Meech Mercury: The industries perspective on hip hop and black music in general. I feel like even at its current popularity peak, hip hop isn’t given the respect it deserves as a genre. All hip hop music is still grouped together as one, all hip hop music is still perceived in a certain light, all hip hop music is still seen as a novelty art by the world than as a true and serious art form. It’s a genre that is based in sampling, originality and dense lyricism or vocal performance, why is it then that its sub genres aren’t respected? If I went to upload a hip hop song right now the only option I would be given is hip hop. No option for alternative, trap, old school, industrial, etc. it’s a genre that leaves the most room for experimentation (in my opinion) yet it’s all thrown under the same blanket. Rock music gets its various sub genres that help listeners understand what it is they’re going to experience. The same goes for folk music, jazz, and many others but when it comes to hip hop it’s one size fits all. It’s the reason why even the most creative artist in the industry a lot of times end up just copying the most popular sound. Mainstream music has always existed, but when it comes to hip hop it feels like the industry is pushing for that to be the ONLY type of music that exist when it comes to hip hop. What do I know though I’m just talking.
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