To kick off Labor Day Weekend, the Dallas-born, Queens-raised musician is throwing an “experience party” instead of a “listening party” for PreMedz: The First Dosage at Club Dada, putting together a live band to bring his production to life.
Before we get into the nitty-gritty of PreMedz: The First Dosage, Medz tells us about his days as an MC and almost signing to a record label in New York. He started in gospel music before getting into hip-hop. Of course, life happens. The album he was working on and the band he was in disbanded. He started to travel a lot as an artist. Moving to New Orleans opened him up to the world of brass bands and bounce music.
“Years went by,” Medz starts. “I have to give a real shout-out to my mentor, Robert "Sput" Searight, and a good friend of mine here, Cleon [Edwards]. Cleon and Robert are both very influential drummers. They both just kind of hint like, ‘You think like a producer, you know that, right?’”
Fast-forward to the pandemic. Medz and Searight were having a conversation. He recalls Searight asking to send him some tracks. They went through a process of Searight asking him for beats, and Medz not having any. “He was like, ‘My bad. Send me some drums, I’ll go ahead and play some keys over them.’ I was like, ‘I don’t have any drums at the house.’ He’s like, ‘You don’t? OK, at your studio.’ I don’t have a studio … you can hear the sigh in his voice on the phone. ‘Do me a favor, invest in an MPC or a machine or something. Start producing something because right now is not the time to only be a drummer.’”
The advice stuck in his head. Medz was a drummer for 17 bands then and couldn’t work because everything was shut down. Searight’s advice pushed him to find another passion. This spurred the idea of PreMedz: The First Dosage, a chance to show his versatility with just instrumentals and no vocals.
“The original title for my first album was called Medz,” he says.
The album, which will still come out, is 11 tracks. He continues, “Everything happened when I was 11. I started falling in love with hip-hop at 11. I started playing drums when I was 11, so it's 11 tracks. Each track follows me from the age when I started loving hip-hop all the way up to my age now. So it shows the growth in me musically and the different styles of music I play. So some songs I'll be drumming. Some songs I'll have written the lyrics and have given them to somebody else. So the album is made to show people that I'm not just the drummer.”
His mentor’s words continued to swirl in his head: Don’t be just a drummer. When he showed his beginning production work to his “elite musician friends” (people with Grammys and other accolades), they complimented him on how much better he was getting, giving critiques and guidance on where he could improve. The drums were always on point. “In my head, I’m like, ‘Dang, apparently, I'm good at drum programming and drum manipulation, but how can I get past that? So that was my ultimate goal,” he says. “At least out of the production, if I were on a production team, I would be in charge of drum programming. Let me go ahead and try to get the fullness out of it so somebody says this whole body of a song sounds good. Once I got to that, nobody hardly said that again.”
Medz says the learning curve for producing was nine months. On our call, he showed his commitment to production by holding up his MPC Live II, which he carries with him everywhere. He’s excited to unlock the machine’s full capabilities.
“I still haven’t done 80% of what this thing can do,” Medz says. “It’s stuff that I don’t even want to get into yet. This particular machine can carry a whole band while I’m producing at the same time. I can mix and master out of this machine if I knew how.”
Friday's show will feature band members who are dear to him: Chris Carr on bass, his “secret weapon” Evan Lamb on guitar, Jordache Grant on keys and DeAnthony McGee on EWI. The last person ended up being a surprise.
“As busy as Cleon is, he is going to be coming off the Erykah Badu tour,” Medz says. His two main percussionists, Frank Moka and Nick Roundhouse, were already booked. “I asked Cleon about it, and he was like, ‘I can be your percussionist. You know I love your work. You know I love what you do. You know I appreciate you. Just send me the work, I got you.’”
Concertgoers who come to the Medz show will walk away with a physical USB drive shaped like a pill containing Medz’s first dosage of your personal prescription, seven songs in an ongoing series, and the second being called PreMedz: Holistic. It won’t be available on streaming services, a move that goes back to the era of opening new CDs and remembering the smell of a fresh package. He wants fans to receive his music and have it mean something.
“I can’t get the concept of renting music,” Medz says. “It just doesn’t feel right to me. Even though I still have to do it because that’s the way we consume music now, I still don’t like it. So I am part of the revolution of getting our money back. So anytime you buy a ticket to the PreMedz show, just know 100% of that money goes towards that USB. You’re paying me directly so I can then take care of the band, take care of everything. Even if you can’t make it, just buy a ticket and then I’ll send you the USB. All you have to do is send me your information, and I’ll send you the USB.”
Medrick “Medz” Greely will perform on Friday, Aug. 29, at 7 p.m. at Club Dada, 2720 Elm St. Tickets are available starting at $20.10 on eventim.us.
