Andy Mineo joins Ebro Darden on Apple Music 1 to discuss exploring his childhood through his new album ‘Never Land II,’ his relationship with frequent collaborator Lecrae, being called a Christian rapper, and more. Below is the video and key quotes from the discussion courtesy of Ebro Darden on Apple Music 1.
Andy Mineo Tells Apple Music About Being Called a Christian Rapper…
Sometimes titles can work against or for. It might work for someone when they rally people who believe the same things that they do. It might work against them if they don’t believe the same things and they’re like, “Oh, that’s not for me, I don’t want to mess with that,” and it kind of marginalizes the art. People don’t give it a chance to shine. That’s why for me in particular, like sometimes I’ve avoided that title, because I’m like, “That’s not helping people who are exposed to good art,” but at the same time I would never want to deny my faith or anything like that, so it’s a weird tension point, you know?
Andy Mineo Tells Apple Music About His Relationship With Christian Rapper Lecrae…
Lecrae and I connected…like in 2009. He was releasing a lot of music and for me, I was new to my faith, my spiritual journey, and I knew that he was making music that was like the soundtrack to this movement. …He and I connected, we worked on a song on his album Rehab and it was the best-selling song on the album. So, right off the bat, we had creative chemistry. He ended up coming to New York, they offered me a deal, and I was getting offers at that point from Sony and a bunch of other places, and I decided to sign with Reach which is an independent label that Lecrae owns, he’s part owner of, and I really believed in the mission and the vision so we jumped on board with them and they’ve been an incredible label home for me for the last 10 years… Lecrae’s like a big brother to me man, like he’s a little bit older than me, and he goes in there and he takes all the beatings in public so he can come back and be like, “Okay, don’t go over there, they slapped me here, move like this.” So he always looks out for me, and it’s an honor to work with him, man. He’s a legend and a great rapper.
Andy Mineo Talks to Apple Music About the Responsibilities That Come With Faith…
If you proclaim to be like, “Hey, I want to live my life and my standards against Jesus; I want to follow Jesus and his teachings and align my life with that,” there’s a certain level of accountability that comes with that, and expectations, you know? Like, “Okay, I want to be a follower of Jesus,” and he says, “Love your enemies.” So I’m like, “How do I put that into practice? I can’t talk about killing my enemies on the next song, otherwise I’m clearly a hypocrite. So there’s a certain level that’s expected and then the other part is like, I think we live in a time of transparency where it’s like, you can’t hide if you wanted to. Everybody’s got phones… You’re going to be exposed here. So I think what we should have is a healthy balance, which is understanding that people who proclaim to be believers, that never meant that they were perfect in the first place. It just means they aim for that standard and they try to live their lives by that, but of course, they’re human and they’re going to fail so… The Christian faith is all about grace, right? It’s like, “Oh I’m not perfect so I need help, and I need faith, and I need guidance,” so I hope that’s what people get.
Andy Mineo Tells Apple Music About His Album Title…
So Never Land 1 is an album that I put out a little bit earlier in my career, and it was like my first song that went gold was on there, and it was kind of like a milestone for me. And Never Land is about… Growing up, my favorite movie was “Hook.” You know, Peter Pan and Never Land is this place that you go to where you never grow up, but there’s also this like… there’s this youth, this childish desire to never lose life, and things are big and it’s asking me and you’re not cynical, you know? So there’s this childish aspect to it, but at the same time, they had no guidance, none of these kids and they’re trying to figure out who their king is… So I’ve always related to that… So Never Land II is like, okay, let’s go back to that when I thought I was going to have a child and I wanted to too – as a man, I’m getting a little older, where you start to see death, you start to see divorce, you start to see people that you grew up with living with, they’re living in a whole different way. I think a lot of grief, betrayal, things like that happen. The loss of my mother; I just had to bury my mother. Life can really beat you up and it can take away a little bit of that childish hope and vulnerability and innocence. So it’s a return to that like, “Let’s try not to lose that as life continues to beat us up.”
Andy Mineo Talks to Apple Music About Album Opener…
Basically this beat was made by a friend of mine, his name is Beam… He’s been working with me for a minute. Beam and Vory came into the studio with me, this was about 2 years ago now, and we were working on a different project and he played me this intro, and I was like “wait, what is this?” It was this amazing intro and I was like “yo, this thing is way too long” and he was like “no but this is amazing, we gotta keep it.” So I was like “listen, let me take this, I want to use it for my album” and we split it into two parts. So obviously you have the iconic epic intro and then it goes into the first bop. And when I went in and recreated the beat, I sampled the first half into the beat of the second half. “Am I… Falling,” so the main lyric is, “Am I falling from the sky or falling into your hand? Is this a disguise, or is this your plan? Can you tell me why when I don’t understand? Am I at the end or am I just beginning?” Like, “Am I falling?” And so that’s a question that often comes up in life when you feel like, “Fuck I’m falling” or like, “Am I making a mistake or stumbling.” A lot of times you look back on those moments in your life and you realize they weren’t the end of something, they were the beginning of something new… I realize a lot of these trials and heartbreaks, and some of the things that I’ve experienced, they teach me things. A lot of times I want to get out of those situations, but I realize that God is trying to let me learn from them. So it’s kind of that question, am I falling? Where am I falling?
The post office Andy Mineo Talks “Never Land II” on Apple Music 1 first appeared on TCB.
Author: Jessie Clarks
Link to the source of the publication
( —)
