WHAT WENT DOWN: Meechy Darko’s Headline London Show [@MEECHISDEAD]

One third of Brooklyn’s finest rap trio Flatbush Zombies, Meechy Darko embarked on what was dubbed “The Tour Without A Name” this June following the release of his debut solo album Gothic Luxury last August. Making his way through the crowd at Moth Club as his DJ pressed play on Beast Coast collab, ‘Left Hand’, the crowd immediately start going wild and a wheel up was due. When the beat dropped second time round, the raspiness in his voice bellowed out the mic, lights began to flash and he started jumping heavily up and down the stage. He kept that same energy for ‘PRADA U’, with the crowd yelling every bar word for word at the top of their voices.

“Do you mind if I get into some classic sh*t? Yes or no?” He says before getting into Flatbush Zombies’ classics. Unexpectedly starting with ‘Bath Salts’ – a proper throwback to ASAP Mob and Flatbush Zombies’ 2012 collab – before he dived into the crowd after his verse. Other “classic sh*t” included ‘Thug Waffle’, ‘Bounce’, ‘Headstone’ and ‘Palm Trees’ – which saw him encourage the crowd to put up a lighter before the soft vocals, that were originally sampled from Jeni Suk’s cover of ‘Wildfire’ by SBTRKT, floated throughout the venue – juxtaposing Meech’s deep raspy voice blessing the microphone.

When he wasn’t busy gracing the stages of Moth Club with classics, we had the opportunity to catch up with the wordsmith on the difference between his solo and group work, his cadence and more.

Kat: Coming from a group environment, was there anything you definitely wanted to implement in your solo debut album ‘Gothic Luxury’ about yourself as an artist and how did you achieve that?

Meechy Darko: I’m still in a group environment, just a different one. Different specialists with different skills to help me get my role done. I guess… selfishness, I focus on being selfish. Whatever I wanna do, I ain’t gotta ask somebody no questions. “Do you like this idea? Do you like this song? Do you like this beat?” I don’t gotta really compromise anything. You always think you wanna be on your own, you wanna do shit on your own, you get on your own, you be like, “Damn, what do I really do with us?” That was really the quest for my project – how selfish do I be? 

Kat: You’re a man of many iconic lyrics, whether that’s bars you’ve written solo or on music you’ve released with Flatbush Zombies. Do you have any personal favourites?

Meechy Darko: A lot of them are s**t that’s not out yet. One of my favourite bars ever is random. There’s a song called ‘Chuch’. I say “Some say the proof is in books, some say the proof it is hidden / I bet Eminem and a reverend will tell you Proof is in heaven”, cause his best friend’s name is Proof, and I just thought that was cool. That’s one of my favourites, I like playing with words like that.

Kat: Your voice is so distinctive – definitely my favourite in hip hop – who inspired your cadence and flow?

Meechy Darko: Jamaica. Getting screamed at by my grandparents and my family in very aggressive tones for being bad. Buju Banton, Busta Rhymes, blunts, cognac. That’s just like my natural [voice], I think I was supposed to do voice acting or cartoons. I have highs and lows in my voice, I just tend to use the lows. Nobody wants to hear me sing like Mickey Mouse, but yeah that’s my inspiration for my voice. It’s not really an inspiration, it’s a gift. You don’t choose your voice, but work on it though. Make it better and worse. 

Kat: I see you tweet “Own The Day” quite frequently, what does that mean to you and how do you “own the day”?

Meechy Darko: That’s just a mantra I made when I woke up. Every day, you should just have something to make you feel like you have a purpose. I like to walk with intent. When people see me outside, they’re like “Damn, you walking mad fast, where you going?” Even if I’m going nowhere, I’m heading nowhere fast. You gotta train yourself to feel like that. I feel like if you wake up with a mantra every day, whether that be “F**k b*****s get money,” whatever the f**k it may be – have something like that. It helps you get through your day for better or for worse, whatever you’re into. I feel like those things are needed to help people, and I never thought it would be something that other people, I’ve seen so much “Own The Day” tattoos and all people live by it. I never thought it would be something like that. It was just natural, I didn’t think about it.

Kat: I saw you say that you’re sitting on some new music – is there anything you can tell us about that?

Meechy Darko: New project’s on the way, it’s called Doses. It’s a series that I want to do once a year of an archive of ideas that didn’t really fit. Sometimes you come up with a movie idea, alright – the movie’s called Men in Black, and then you might have three pages in that script that might not necessarily need to be there, but they’re brilliant. You just take that dialogue and place it elsewhere – if it fits. I feel like a lot of artists, we have a vision where it’s like, “All right, I’m gonna paint like this,” you have a collection, you think “Alright, the next five pages I’m gonna do is gonna be seen like this, but you might just end up being something else. Sometimes, we just ball that shit up and throw it in the garbage cause you so headstrong and tunnel visioned on the main mission – but those songs, those ideas, they were birthed from you; they’re still your babies and the world needs them. I was tired of having loose songs and things that I liked that gave me feelings – I was like, “Alright, people need these songs. I don’t wanna just release them with no intention.” I wanted to make something that I could do every year when I have new stuff and song ideas that don’t really match my main goal. Let’s say next year my goal is to make people dance – I’m still gonna make sad songs and happy songs and drug songs – I still wanna be able to do that. I want people to have a project they can listen to that’s not like, “What is the meaning of this? How does this all connect with each other? What’s the story?” There’s no story. This song is about this. This story is about my toes. This song is about me. This is about the gum under my shoe. It’s fake to me. It gets too crazy. I want a project where I don’t have to say anything, it is what it is.

Kat: How do you find crowds in Europe compared to the States? 

Meechy Darko: Some parts of the states is crazy – some parts here [too]. I’ve been doing this for years, so I’m not gonna single nobody out. The major cities seem to have the most stiff [crowds] – it makes sense. If you’re in f**king New York City, everybody here thinks they’re cool, but if you go to middle of Arkansas, they’re like, “Yo, you came to us. A lot of people don’t come here,” and they’re gonna give you that energy.

I feel like it’s when you go overseas, they know you came a long way. I’ve seen UK artists in America too, and the crowd is excited and I’m like, “Damn y’all not excited like that for us,” but it’s like they know that these people came from another part of the world and did a journey to come here. I think that’s a big thing, and they know that I might never do this again. There’s definitely way more energy and excitement, I don’t know what it is exactly – I don’t know if it’s cause I’m foreign to you guys. I don’t know what it is, but it’s like this excitement and energy, but everywhere is different. I’ve been to crowds [where] they can’t fully say the words, but they gave us the most energy. Then I’ve been to crowds that know every word, but they’re just not really jumping, they’re not moshing, but they know every word – you can’t judge fans. Everybody expresses their love differently and it’s cultural things. The last show we had on Joey[Bada$$]’s tour we was in Ireland and we were all drunk. Everybody got drunk. The whole show was about getting drunk. I finished half a Jameson stage and that was the energy of that show. Getting drunk with the crowd, having fun. If I was doing that kind of show in Brooklyn, it wouldn’t look the same – it’s just different. So you also gotta be like “When you with the Romans, do like the Romans,” and I do that. If I’m gonna be with these motherf****ng drunk Irish people, I’m getting as drunk as they’re going to get and it’s gonna make the show better instead of complaining like, “Why don’t y’all act like New York? Why don’t they act like this?” Figure out what they like. 

Is there any artists from the UK that you’ve been listening to that you might wanna collaborate with in the future? 

Meechy Darko: I would say Skepta. I wanna do another one with Skepta – I was trying to get Skepta on the last album. I like to work with people I know. There’s other people I admire, but you learn quick when you just talk about who you admire too much. I got admiration with people. I like to meet people in the flesh and see what they’re really about. I’m always go with Skepta first, if I have a chance I wanna do another song and I got an idea them too. We got unfinished business.

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