Photo by Jaxon Buzzell.
midwxst has been a name bubbling in the hip-hop/hyperpop scene for some time now, bending genres and truly innovating sound at only 18. Born in Columbia, South Carolina, and growing up in Indiana, he had endless room to be creative with no outside influences or oversaturated markets creeping from behind him.
“I started making music freshman year of high school making diss tracks for my friends.
Not taking it seriously at all, then at the end of sophomore year, I started thinking I could
actually do this if I put the time and effort into it. Then things started to pick up in late
2020 and my senior year I was walking through the halls after being in a label meeting the
day before.”
Having that time to grow up without big-city influences really allowed midwxst to experiment and craft the sound he felt the music scene was lacking. This gave him all the room to craft a sound that not only he truly enjoyed, but hadn’t been heard before.
“I was making a lot of stuff that no one really was, I wasn’t in an oversaturated sound or
market. It was just me being me and making the type of music I like to listen to and
hopping on the type of beats I like to hop on.”
midwxst has truly been a pioneer in this new scene of hip-hop-infused hyperpop, and he’s
definitely built an identity and origin story behind the genre that’s taking music by storm. He’s never made music with any intentions besides simply fueling his passion for music and building a platform to support himself and the people around him by doing what he loves.
“All of us make music because we love music, we’re able to provide for our friends and
family. We do this because we want to be something bigger and leave something behind,
so we can’t be boxed in, it’s bigger than one song.”
Things really started moving for midwxst come his senior year of high school with the release of his hit single “Trying”, which was one of the earliest forms of this newfound genre. He remembers going from label meetings over the weekend to walking the school halls that next Monday, and that being a surreal feeling as he always stuck to himself in high school.
“The intention is to show kids, and black teens especially that aren’t that social or
socially accepted that if a nerd like me can do this hit, then the skies the limit. If I can do
this off making music in my bedroom self taught then you can do whatever you want; I
didn’t get here overnight, i haven’t got to where I want to be. I grow with each release and
it just cements the foundation brick by brick.”
It’s essential to keep your circle tight when coming up at a young age, and midwxst has stuck true to that. His homecoming show in Indiana is coming up this summer where he’ll showcase himself along with some upcoming local artists so if you’re in the area make sure to check that out and in the meantime check out his new project “better luck next time”.
“You just gotta stick with your homies, if you got a group of people you came up with,
stay loyal to them. In the end if shit goes bad, they’re gonna be the only ones on your
corner routing for you, you only got one life. Are you gonna sit around and dwell on what
you could’ve done or are you gonna do that shit? It really just comes down to if you have
the guts to take that risk or if you just gonna sit around and wait for that shit.”
