Merkules
Starting with 2012’s Canadian Bacon LP and Bacon Bits EP, Merkules has become one of rap’s most prolific artists, releasing LPs, EPs, singles, and videos at a remarkable pace. The title track to his 2015 LP Scars details a vicious, life-alterting attack he suffered at 16 while walking home from a New Year’s Eve party. That song was among the ones that showed another side of Merkules, one where he was vulnerable, emotional, and willing to explore the deepest and darkest part of his life and his emotions.
By the time Merkules got to 2017’s Trust Your Gut and songs such as “Way Down” and 2018’s Cole, with songs such as “Work,” “On My Own,” and “Moment,” he had evolved into an often introspective rapper who accented his work by singing, bearing his soul, and examining his mental health. He also did it on songs such as “Heart Of My Sleeve,” which he released in between projects.
“Me and my friends, we have this inside joke,” Merkules reveals. “We call it hangover rap. A lot of my music, it sounds like I’m just hung over, that I hate life, and I’m writing about how hung over I am. Yeah, fans want to hear you talk about how you’re the illest, that you’re blowing up, and that nobody can do anything about it because they’ve watched your journey. They feel like they’ve been a part of that and they have. But they also like the deeper songs, which are just relatable in the sense that I’m talking about stuff that maybe not everybody else has the balls to talk about. People tend to think that if they’re depressed or they have anxiety that’s like something to be ashamed of or that that’s some wack shit. It’s like, ‘No, bro.’ We all go through that. So I think that me just speaking on topics that maybe everybody else isn’t willing to talk about, it’s a big reason why those kind of songs resonate with people.”