UNCOVER | BEHIND THE MUSIC
MidaZ The Beast Had Music He Needed the World to Hear.
In January 2020, I flew to Orlando after one of my brothers was diagnosed with lymphoma. In his hospital room, he wanted to talk about his next album. The first song he played me was “Ugly In Him.”
When I got to the hospital, MidaZ wanted to talk about music.
He was visibly weakened by treatment. I had flown to Orlando after he told me he had been diagnosed with lymphoma, and my brother picked me up from the airport so we could go see him. There was a lot to take in. But for most of that visit, MidaZ wanted to talk about his next album. What he was working on. What he was getting ready to put out.
He had songs he wanted me to hear.
The first one was called “Ugly In Him.”
My Brother
To explain what that moment meant to me, I have to explain who MidaZ is in my life.
MidaZ The Beast helped me develop as a producer. When I think about the people who influenced that development, he is probably the most influential. His place in my story goes that far back and runs that deep.
He’s my partner in crime. One of my best friends on planet Earth. The best man at my wedding. My brother.
In January 2020, he hit me up and told me he had cancer. I can’t remember exactly how many days passed before I got on that plane. It may have been a few days or a few weeks. What I remember clearly is going to see him, sitting there, and hearing how much of his attention was still on the music.
Even with everything happening to his body, he was thinking about his next project.
What We Leave Here
There is something he said during that visit that I have never forgotten.
He talked about me and my brothers having children. About the things we had built and done that would leave something behind when we were gone.
From his perspective, what he had to leave was his music.
That was how he explained the urgency. He needed to get his music into the world because he felt it was what would remain of him. The songs mattered to him as a legacy, and he wanted people to have them.
That is a heavy thing to hear from someone you love. Especially someone whose influence you already carry in your own work.
I was sitting in front of a person who had helped shape the producer I became, listening to him explain why he needed to leave something here. His impact was already part of my life. But I could hear how much it mattered to him that the music itself made it out.
“Ugly In Him”
He played me a few songs that day. “Ugly In Him” came first.
That is the memory attached to this song for me: being in Orlando, visiting my brother in the hospital, and listening to what he wanted to share. Hearing him talk about the future through the projects he was working on.
Whenever I think about that visit, I come back to how much he wanted those songs to be heard.
Today, I felt compelled to share this one here.
MidaZ has been such an important part of my life and my development as an artist. Sharing “Ugly In Him” gives me a chance to share a little of that relationship, too—to tell you who he is to me and why I remember the first time he played it.
My brother wanted his music in the world. I want you to hear it.