Multi-instrumentalist/producer/rapper Namir Blade is preparing to release his new album Metropolis—the follow-up to his 2021 collab album with L'Orange Imaginary Everything and 2020's solo venture Aphelion's Traveling Circus—on June 3 via Mello Music Group. Metropolis is named after the 1927 film which inspired Blade with its "themes of classism, civil unrest, and an overall uncertainty in a bright future," which he added "are all themes that I identified with as a Black man living in the United States." Today, the Nashville native dropped "Mephisto," the second single off the album, which was completely recorded, mixed, and produced in his living room.
Over soulful coos that seem like they're taken straight from a Motown recording session, Blade raps playfully about creating in a death-filled, routinely hopeless world. He depicts the unrest of his city and thriving in spite of it: "World gon' marvel at me / I’m Kevin Feige now," his words bouncing atop cherubic harmonies as he nods to the president of the superhero franchise. "I wear my heart on my sleeve, I get conflicted sometimes / I need a reason to rhyme, I need a reason for something," he laters reveals. "I gotta push to the limit / Ain’t no question I’m gifted." Indeed.
The song was inspired by the German myth of Mephistopheles. “Mephisto serves as a debt collector for people who sell their souls to Lucifer," Blade explained. "He doesn't really relish in his work at all, claiming that he only appears to those who are already corrupted. The exchange of virtues in order to gain influence, wealth, or material things isn’t something foreign to the entertainment industry at all.”
Listen to "Mephisto" below, and pre-order Metropolis here.
