Maurico Music
Nashville, TN | Established. Jan 01, 2012 | SELF
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Many different styles flow in the musical waters of Nashville, and today we shine the spotlight on up-and-coming hip-hop artist Maurico, who releases his debut EP, I Am Maurico, this week.
Billboard has the exclusive premiere of his brand-new video for the single "City Come Alive." Watch it below:
Maurico tells Billboard he's very proud of his Music City roots. "I am from Nashville, which is where I was born and raised. This is always home. You get off the plane at Nashville International, and the air and the atmosphere changes."
And the rapper is he's likewise proud to show that the musical scene in Nashville extends to many different genres, in addition to country. "A lot of people look at Nashville as just that one area, or sound, because that's what a lot of the ones that come out of here are in. But this is Music City. You've got rock artists, hip-hop artists, multiple genres of artists that are very good. I think it's time that somebody sees the other side of that and brings that full side to that -- and brings that full meaning to Music City."
Maurico's music relies on live instrumentation as opposed to strictly programmed beats. "I think that is really important, because people have been saying that music is missing something," he admits. "The best songs are timeless, and I feel a lot of that has to do with the actual organic instruments. Live instruments bring that vibration and feel to the music, along with the vocals. I think that being more instrumental with what we do allows people to come into it better and feel it."
Signed to the Tennessee Recording Company, a label co-owned by Matchbox Twenty's Kyle Cook, Maurico says he really hadn't set out to obtain a deal. "I have a friend of mine named Michael Hill, who is also known as Kutty Blade. He's a barber: He's brushed shoulders with a lot of people in the industry, and does their hair. He happened to know a guy who worked next to Kyle's studio. Kyle had told him he was looking for a hip-hop artist to sign. Michael calls me and says, 'We've got a meeting we need to go to.'
"At this point, I was in independent mode. I just wanted to freely create, and not have any rules. I really didn't know who he was. He asked me some questions, and he got some music out of me that I had sitting in my car. He heard it, and a couple of tracks struck his interest. He asked me to bring him something back for him to listen to. I said I would, and left. I almost didn't go back, but I figured, 'What can it hurt?'"
But it took some legwork for Cook to find him again. "I gave him a CD with no contact information on there or anything. He found a Twitter account I had that I never used or checked, but it was connected to my email. He reached out to me, and said he was interested in working with me. So I came in and we wrote the first song, 'Reckless and Dangerous.' He was testing me to see what my capabilities were. He would say, ' Can you sing this chorus?' We got in here, and I sung it. He said 'We need verses,' so I wrote two in about 15 minutes. A couple of months go by, and we created about four or five more songs. He calls me on my birthday and said he wanted to sign me. It was the best birthday present I ever got," he says fondly.
He jokes about how glamorous the video making experience was for "City Come Alive": "We shot about four or five scenes, and by the time we got to the second one, they were putting cold cans of cold drink on my neck, and water bottles under my shirt, because I was drenched, and had all the makeup on me. They'd say, 'Do it again.'"
But Maurico isn't complaining. "I love doing the music, and I could have done it for another 12 hours. I would have been tired, but my mind would have allowed me to keep doing it." - Billboard
Maurico tells Music Times it All!! - Music Times
Nashville, Tennessee rapper Maurico presents "Grace", his new single produced by his nephew and rising production talent Justin Scott. Years of performing and promoting in the Nashville area as a teen caught the attention of Kyle Cook of Matchbox 20, who signed Maurico to his label Tennessee Recording Company in 2013. Fast-forward to 2017 and Maurico is an independent artist prepping the release of I Love You 2, his new EP dropping on his own Trak Makas Music Group imprint featuring Rome Logan and Britney Holmes as well as production from Adrian Adonis and Nikola Nikolic. Maurico's previous full-lengths include 4 The Music (Soundcloud) & Doin This (Soundcloud) and he released videos for the J.U.S.T.I.C.E. League remix of "City Come Alive" (Youtube) and "Autograph" (Youtube). Maurico says "Grace" was written "during a tough season in my life when nothing was going right. Everything was falling apart, I was starting to feel defeated and my faith was being tested to its maximum capacity. While realizing I wasn’t perfect and that falling short of the mark sometimes happens, God still blessed me through it all. I gained strength to continue to push on and not give up on my dreams." - dopesouf.com
Discography
Still working on that hot first release.
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Bio
Maurico is the epitome of a hard worker. As early as seven, the resourceful Nashville-native was creating music by any means possible. “I was experimenting with old keyboards and cassette players — anything that made a sound,” he explains.
“I never had the money to get the proper equipment so I had to get creative around the house. For instance, I had a cassette player that had a microphone slot that just said, ‘Mic’ and I would beat on the table and make my beat that way. If I wanted to do something, I would spend all day trying to figure it out.”
By the time he was in high school, Maurico was performing in clubs and writing his own raps. A chance meeting in biology class led to a collaboration with a fellow student that led to his first taste of stardom. The pair performed locally and made CDs and even got airplay on a Nashville radio station. After five years together, Maurico branched out on his own to expand his influence. “I wanted to do a lot more,” he recalls. “I decided I was going to do my own mix tape. I wanted to sing, I wanted to rap, so I recorded five or six songs of my own.”
Not even out of his teens and Maurico was gaining solo notoriety. “I did everything myself. I coordinated my own promotion team, my own release parties. I started making a name for myself. I was producing, shooting videos, and all of this done was done legit; no one was selling drugs.”
After a few years of playing the music industry game his way, Maurico was invited to a meeting with a “rock star.” “I was told, ‘Hey, there’s the rock artist and they’ve got a lot of money and they want to invest in a hip hop artist,’” Maurico remembers. “They even got the band name wrong, I think they said it was Lighterbox 20. I was like, ‘I ain’t heard of no shit like that.’”
The meeting was actually with Matchbox Twenty member Kyle Cook, who was opening the Tennessee Recording Company in Nashville. Maurico, who had no interest in the meeting – “I didn’t want to come and see what they were taking about, because I had created an empire of my own. I didn’t want anyone changing my beliefs and my focus.” – even failed to bring any of his music for Cook to hear. Cook pried, though, and Maurico shared some new, unfinished music with the label head. And then, Maurico forgot all about it.
“Kyle went and researched me and found an old Twitter that I had,” Maurico explains, after confessing that he had never given Cook any contact information. “He found the email address that was attached it. I never checked that email and one day I checked it. He was in there a couple times, like, ‘Hey, I’m trying to get in touch with you. I like your music.'”
Despite his original hesitation, Maurico reached out to Cook and the two started working together on several songs in the studio. “Finally, I researched Kyle and was like, ‘Damn, they sang that song? I know that song.'” Maurico adds. “These guys are for real.” As Maurico worked with Cook and his producing partner Mike Fiorentino, the rapper found himself opening up and sharing personal lyrics in these new songs.
“I am not the product of what I grew up in,” Maurico says.
Sometimes we didn’t have lights or water. Mom was mother and father, and she was sick. She had cancer, diabetes and, when she passed I found out, she had HIV. She was a drug addict. At the time I didn’t realize why she was doing drugs, and I’m not going to say that now that I know that’s a good decision, but I can see why she’d lean toward it. She had a lot on her.
“If you weren’t on drugs in my family, you were probably selling it. Not everybody, but there was large amount. I was around all of that. I even went through my stage of wanting to do that. But I found out real quickly that wasn’t for me and I wasn’t going to do that. I could’ve easily gone the other way. I could’ve been locked up, I could’ve been hurt, killed. I could be the biggest drug dealer or I could be on drugs. Some way or another I shook all of that. I’m here today to say I did not become a victim of my circumstance.”
That circumstance shapes Maurico’s sound, which can be heard on his five-song EP. “I push not to put out negative things. My focus and my intentions are for the better, he explains. Rap, in the beginning, was supposed to be this hard, tough, cool thing to do. If you know Maurico, I’m silly as hell. I’m not that hard thing, but I can be. I’m serious but I’m also very playful. I’m able to incorporate all of that into the music. As I make a world changing song with a really serious topic, I’m also silly and comical. I’m a loving person because I want to love and create that environment of happiness. I want to help in any way I can.”
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