Album Review: King Mez- “My Everlasting Zeal” (Release: June 2012)
An area that doesn’t get too much national attention as having a strong presence in the hip hop community is North Carolina, and making much noise recently from NC is 22-year-old emcee King Mez. In fact, Mez has been at this for awhile. I first became aware of him as one half of the rhyming duo, The Lazeretto Crew, before really getting a taste for his skills as the lead emcee on his 2010 release with producer Commissioner Gordon, The Paraplegics. It was a project strong enough that back then anyone could’ve easily thought the then 20-year-old Mez had next.
Over the following two years King Mez released the highly touted The King’s Khrysis EP, along with a barrage of solid features and well received singles. Those only had more people, especially resident NC hip hop fans, convinced that Mez was poised to make noise on a national level at a volume similar to hometown heroes Little Brother and J. Cole before him. So when I talked with King Mez in December and he said that watching his debut album develop made his past music seem almost mediocre to him, I knew My Everlasting Zeal would be a project I’d have to lend an ear to.
