Showmanship is a sorely under-valued skill set in Hip-Hop these days, especially when many interpret MC as an acronym for “move the crowd.” It’s easy to spot an artist with a powerful stage presence, but there are so many intangibles that speak to why this crop of MCs connect with and command crowds with an iron fist much better than others.
That was our draw to Andy Mineo, an upstate New York-bred wordsmith, who currently resides in the Uptown streets of Washington Heights. Hip-Hop Wired had the pleasure of seeing him display his wizardry on stage at Santos Party House (an ironic fact that will be clarified in moments) on April 17.
But in retrospect, the quality of his Never Land EP should have been a proper allusion of what his show would bring. Prior to the sold out live performance — some would-be attendees were denied entry due to oversold tickets — we had an opportunity to discuss the music that had the people going.
Who: Andy Mineo, our latest Certified Fresh selection, is both an able MC and a devoted Christian. Yet, his spirit to spit and religious beliefs appear in his music in a way that’s no different than, say, a Clipse-era Malice. Sans the drug references, Mineo’s bars are about finding the common thread that connects us all — one that hopefully evokes a spirit as well.
Credentials: The excess of people who came out to see Mineo at Santos indicates that he could very well be one of Hip-Hop’s best kept secrets. But not for long, as the New Yorker betters his craft with each new project.
Fun Fact: Mineo actually got engaged to his wife-to-be a night prior to the aforementioned show.
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Photo: Andy Mineo
Hip-Hop Wired: Many got hip to you after you appeared on MTV RapFix in December. How did that appearance come about?
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Andy Mineo: The day of the RapFix thing, I was asked to be on it last minute — just a couple hours before they did it. There was a lot of nerves and a lot of [saying] ‘Oh man, I don’t know if I’m prepared.'” Plus, I’d never been on MTV before. Then I found out I’d be performing in front of Sway — I grew up listening to Sway and Tech in the morning and definitely looked up to dude.
It was definitely an honor to do it and I just came with whatever I had. I tried to write some rhymes that day and just tried to be as prepared as I could. You saw what happened. I did my thing and people enjoyed it. And it created more opportunities for me to come back and speak with Sway again to open up my fan base a little. That’s the goal.
HHW: What was the inspiration behind Never Land?
Andy Mineo:Never Land is my first EP and we wanted to give fans something to hold them over until the next album, because my album (Heroes for Sale) had just come out eight months prior. I’m kind of a ball of creativity and energy, so I didn’t want to sit around and wait any longer to drop new music. And I love giving the fans cool stuff.
Never Land, I wanted to name the project that because that was my favorite story growing up, which was Peter Pan and “Neverland” was the place where Peter Pan went whenever he had happy thoughts… whenever he got connected with his childhood. The other concept behind Neverland is just that I want to elevate people’s thinking, people’s living to kind of get them off the ground. Like never land.
HHW: You integrated a visual component to this project. How did you approach doing that?
Andy Mineo: I created Never Land and we did the Saturday Morning Cartoons webisodes series to accompany the project. You can head to AndyMineo.com to watch. Every week I came out with a new episode of the behind the scenes of the creative process of making Neverland. I let the fans get a visual to see the whole process as I was creating the project, which I thought created another unique and fun experience for the fans.
HHW: Content wise, you’re openly religious and considered a Christian rapper. What are some misconceptions of Christian MCs?
Andy Mineo: I am definitely a Christian and I’m definitely a Hip-Hop artist. I think Christian artists sometimes have the cards stacked against them, because people can formulate all kinds of opinions on somebody because of their faith based off of previous experiences. Say somebody went to church and they had a bad experience or somebody was watching TV and saw “buy your miracle healing rag,” and they felt like somebody was trying to take money from them, they might have had a bad depiction of who Christians are.
When you talk about Christians being in music, I think they might not give artists a chance because they’ve had a bad experience with Christians. And that’s unfortunate, because I think people are missing out on lots of good music and lots of good things that Christian artists have to offer.
I think there is a misconception that Christians can’t rap, but I would fight against that. Look at the gamut of artist who are Christians right now, between Me, LeCrae, We Live As Kings, Christon Gray, [and] Alex Faith. I could go on for days at this point of all [Christian] artists that I say can hang with everyone in the industry. It’s just an exposure thing; people don’t know who these guys are. And on top of that I would say most people — not just Christian artists — most people can’t rap.
HHW: What do you think those preconceived notions say about fans?
Andy Mineo: I think that says something about people and their own shallowness… to not give an opportunity to listen to these artists and not give them a chance before they hear them because of preconceived notions. After giving the music a chance, I think people would like it.
HHW: Now that Never Land is out, what’s next for Andy Mineo?
Andy Mineo: There’s a lot going on with me both in my personal live (he and his girlfriend recently got engaged) and in my music career. In the next year, what you should see is a big tour. We’re co-headlining a tour and also working on my headlining tour for 2015. On top of that, a new album, Lord willing, is going to drop sometime January 2015. In between, I’m working on new music already, working on music videos, lots of traveling, and lots of playing out all part of the country.
