Marco Pavé: Jordan Year (Era)

Fresh off the release of my Perceptions EP, I was inspired to drop a new mixtape for the new year and in celebration of my 23rd birthday, called Jordan Year. To me, it’s also a statement for the great responsibility that I already have as a leader in the city of Memphis. I am not only a rapper in Memphis but a leader in arts advocacy that spills over into a multitude of other things. I have written major articles for publications like Gawker and op-eds for Memphis' paper of record, The Commercial Appeal. 2015 marked a year of foundation building, 2016, my full Jordan Year, will be all about execution and expanding. 

Jordan Year is a mixtape series that will last throughout 2016. There will be 4 Volumes dropping at different times this year. Please be on the lookout for these various releases as I get steps closer to the release of my first gull-length album.

Jordan Year: Vol 1 is out now via: https://soundcloud.com/kingofmarco/sets/jordan-year-vol-1 

Jerry, from Hype Magazine gives it an Overall Rating of: 4/5: Astoundingly good sonically, definitely a set of anthems for self-inspiration and refreshingly celebrates the pillars of Hip-Hop in its storytelling. Production was cleverly interspersed with in your face commentary type skits which synched perfectly with the intervals on the track. Marcos Pavé is a problem…a great one. Looking forward to his continued contributions to the culture.

DreamChaser Chronicles #2: From Slaves to Leaders

Dreamchaser Chronicles #2: From Slaves to Leaders:

March 11th, 2015 is another historic day for me. On this day, I made my way to the University of Cincinnati to do yet another lecture and performance for the UC Africana Studies program. I want to thank Dr. Earl Wright II (a fellow North Memphian) for bringing me out and giving me the platform to tell my story, and most importantly OUR story.  Let me give you  a little historical background of the place. The University of Cincinnati was founded in 1819. That’s 196 years ago. Guess what Earl and I would have been in 1819? A CEO? Maybe a Doctor, Maybe a just a regular tax paying citizen with the right to vote?–how about none of the above; a slave. I flashback to the moment when Earl and I were driving from his beautiful home in Northern Kentucky heading to the university, I thought about 1819, I thought about us being there in that time and how different it would have been for us just a short 196 years ago. This flash back moment led to me posting a status on Facebook that captures my feelings in few short characters, it read:

“Two hundred years ago, two black men crossing the Kentucky boarder to Ohio were 99.9 times out of ten escaping slavery. Now in 2015, I’m crossing the same boarder with Dr. Earl Wright II (a black man), heading to Cincinnati to deliver this work.”

— Marco Pavé

I hit the students with my soon to be classic talk, HipHop Speaks: Music, Change, and the New  Memphis Movement. Black people have went through tremendous turmoil just to get to this point that we are now. Some may say, “Aw, that was 200 years ago, get over it, stop harboring on the past and the negative.” I don’t even have to go back 200 years (I do and I WILL because that’s our history) to show that white people in America at any moment in history tried to keep us down. The delivery of the work went through flawlessly.

I also broke it down to the students that it ain’t all political rap. I proved my point by dropping my single Cake. We are in a time and space that is critical for our culture. As an artist you have to represent multiple things and wear multiple hats. Artist are humans, not robots. I am providing the space that will allow us rappers to be viewed as intellectuals, musicians, historians, turn up gods, twerkers, etc. In the words of Andre 3000, “The South got something to say.”

I do this for Memphis, I do this for equality, I do this for America, I do this for Hip Hop, I do this for the ancestors, I do this legends who gave me advice, I do this for a living (I’m that nigga).

Apr 2, 2015

DreamChaser Chronicles #1: Bed Bugs to UCLA

Dreamchaser Chronicles #1: Bed Bugs to UCLA:

I had always dreamed of the moment that I’d be taken serious with my music career, and that moment came in a 2014 interview on News Channel 3’s  show “Live at 9.” Since that moment I have performed all over the country, recorded with Grammy-winning producers, and met Hip-Hop moguls. Dream come true right? Yes, of course. What I could have not dreamed of however is having the voice of a generation, the voice of a place, the voice for the unheard. I didn’t ask for all that shit when I was crying in my room just wanting my dad to respect my music dreams. All I wanted was some fast cars, some bitches that would do whatever I say, and some money to stunt on all these hating motherfuckers. That was at 15 years old.

At 22 years old, my life has already changed: complete 180. Just one year prior I was depressed, and I mean very. My bed was taken over by the most vicious colony of bed bugs this side of the Mississippi, hell, both. I did not care that they crawled all over me as I slept. They had became apart of my sleeping pattern. Sleep, wake up, smash a couple, scratch, and go back to sleep. I didn’t have the energy and most importantly the self-care to take care of the problem. I felt like I deserved to be sleeping in a bed with bed bugs everywhere. On top of all that when my then two-month-old son came to visit he would have to sleep in that same bed with me because I didn’t have the money to buy him a crib. One day I woke up to change him one day, turned on the light, there were bed bugs all over him scattering out the light. I just broke down in tears; I knew I had hit a new low. I was surrounded by demons, and all I had was my music. I put my all into it to make a better way and to pull myself out of the funk. The music didn’t save me, though. I saved me by loving me. I could have won a Grammy in 2014 and that would have not fixed all the problems that I faced. I had to love myself, I had to choose me in order to choose music, my son, and eventually find my wife.

I digress, though. I actually came here to stunt. In 2013 I dropped out of college, mainly because I didn’t have a car to get there everyday, but also because school wasn’t my passion. I didn’t even know what my major was. Fast-forward to January 2015, and I am boarding a plane to Los Angeles California to deliver a lecture at UCLA. Two years after dropping out of college, a top university was flying me out and paying me to lecture. I told you I came here to stunt. But what could a 22-year-old rapper from North Memphis be talking about to a class full of students at UCLA? Well, first off don’t let the age fool ya, I have lived three lifetimes. I’ve almost died, twice. Almost drowned at 3 years old, and was nearly shot in the face at 15. I am here for a purpose, and I am fulfilling that purpose. I want to tell my story, I want to tell the story of Memphis, I want to shed light on the inequalities that made me grow up in a neighborhood where all of my childhood friends were dead or in jail by the time I was in high school. Urban America, the America that lives under the mighty scope of white supremacy. Welcome to it. I survived it, now I am here to continue the fight of justice and equality like MLK, who was assassinated in my city 35 years before my birth. Old school folks always told us to stay humble, according to Webster’s humble is “of low social, administrative, or political rank.” I did that before with the bed bugs shawty; aint no way I’m staying humble no more. Put me in your history books. You’ll thank me later.

Mar 25, 2015