Kane Mayfield to say goodbye to Baltimore with Metro Gallery show
Baltimore Sun · September 04, 2015Kane Mayfield to say goodbye to Baltimore with Metro Gallery show
After moving here a decade ago, rapper Kane Mayfield is leaving Baltimore later this month, but not before one last show in the city that birthed his rap career.
Tonight, the Long Island, N.Y.-native headlines a one-man show at the Metro Gallery. Soon after, the 33-year-old (born Christopher Reid) will move to Daytona Beach, Fla., where he will continue to pursue music. In an interview last week, Mayfield was coy about the future, but said the move would allow him to reach new audiences across the country.
“The most I can say is I had a really big opportunity presented in front of me,” Mayfield said seated inside a Mount Vernon cafe in between sips of coffee. “It’s a lot of what I’ve been working for. It’s good for everything that we’ve been doing. It just needs me down there.”
While details are vague, Mayfield said the response from his debut album, March’s“The Return of Rap,”has motivated him to promote the project as much as possible.
“It’s not anyone else’s responsibility to make my music more popular except mine,” he said. “So I have to go to places that have never heard my [music]. I have an undeniable album, and that’s very difficult for me to say out loud. It’s true, and it’s not my words. People have said it.”
Mayfield is clearly energized by the record, even though it was borne out of the most trying period in his life.
In the first two days of 2014, Mayfield said two of his best friends attempted suicide and his girlfriend broke up with him via a text message. Then his father passed away that June, the same day as his friend Derrick “OOH” Jones, the influential member of the local rap group Brown F.I.S.H. That winter, Mayfield’s mother died a week after his birthday.
“It was just lightning strike after lighting strike after lighting strike,” Mayfield said before beginning to rap. “I don’t really need it / the whole wide world give me love / doesn’t matter because my parents can’t see it.”
As he grieved, Mayfield focused on music, which partially explains why “Return of Rap” is so important to him. The impressive album is filled with details of loss (“I’d rather be with OOH up in the sky,” he raps on “Chronicles”) and resilience.
A natural, engaging conversationalist, Mayfield covers a wide range of topics on the album with a mix of thoughtful insight and humor, from tearing down black stereotypes (“Shoes”) to corporations using hip-hop culture to sell products (“Subprime”).
The album’s title is a reference not to genre but H. Rap Brown, the ’60s activist who Mayfield said valued concise phrasing over bombastic rhetoric. On “Return of Rap,” Mayfield aimed to do the same.
“I had to make everything plain talk for the album,” he said. “[Brown] said it in the language of the people. So if you notice on the album, there’s not a lot of metaphors or the tricks on the mic that people are used to. That’s all I ever wanted.”
This year has been much more positive for Mayfield. On top of his album’s release, he made a commitment to improve his own health.
“I think I’m an adversity junkie. I come out of this terrible year, and what do I do? I challenge myself to some 100-day trial – no smoking, no drinking, no meat and 1,200 calories a day,” he said. Mayfield picks up his cup to show he’s serious. “There’s no sugar in my coffee.”
He’s down 50 pounds, and wants to lose 50 more. (“I’m like 305 [pounds], 310 depend on what day it is,” he said with a smirk.) Regardless of his changing figure, Mayfield remains the same outsized personality he was when he arrived in Baltimore 10 years ago.
To him, staying true to his roots is vital. It’s why, no matter his location, Mayfield said he will release music through the independent label that convinced him to rap seriously in the first place — Baltimore’s Mania Music Group.
“I was just a kid who did finance and rapped to himself and for his cousins,” he said. “Kane Mayfield as everyone knows it is a product of Mania Music Group. Nothing else.”
Mayfield said he has two projects nearly ready for release, but there is no set timetable for when the public will hear them. Like his future plans, Mayfield is tight-lipped about details, but promises the boom-bap-inspired style he honed in Baltimore remains.
“I’ve got stuff to party and dance to, but let’s be honest man — I’m not Fetty Wap, and I’m not gonna be,” he said. “I’m not Tyga. I’m not those guys. … I don’t even know what my lane is. I stopped looking.”
Tonight, Mayfield will perform with a live band, his final show as a Baltimore-based artist. Quick to call Baltimore his hometown, he says he will visit soon. But first, Mayfield — armed with an album he is truly proud of — wants to spread his music as far as it can go.
For a reason he’s not yet sharing, Florida has offered what he considers the best opportunity to do so.
“I’m chasing my dream full time again. I’m not afraid,” he said. “When you’ve couch-surfed and been at the bottom with no success — I did that with no album. All I need is more people to hear it.”