Mateo has created an impressive body of work before releasing his debut album. Along with working directly with Alicia Keys and her songwriting partner, Krucial, Mateo has released five mixtapes that have allowed fans to get a glimpse of where he’s headed musically.
Mateo kicked off the summer with his major label debut single “How Good Is Your Love.” He’s now prepping for his newest project, We’ve Met Before.
The singer/songwriter discussed Alicia Keys, his musical background and new EP ‘We’ve Met Before’ with rolling out.
You have a knack for creating good music. How did music come into your life? Alicia Keys, his musical background and new EP ‘We’ve Met Before’ with rollingout.
I came from a musical family. I grew up in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was that type of family where I was forced to perform every thanksgiving and holiday against my will. My grandfather was into blues and jazz guitar. He played for James Brown and my grandma was a touring singer. It was just always around. So, I started taking piano lessons and started singing. It’s funny, because it wasn’t until after college I was really like I really want to try to do music professionally. Before I didn’t really want to do it. A lot of people in my family were trying and hadn’t really made it. There are also a lot of things that come a long with music, like drugs and all these things that can tear a family apart. All of those things happened to my family. It wasn’t until I got older, went to college, and had real jobs that I was like; I really want to do this music thing. That’s how it started. Me wanting to be an artist.
How were you able to build your buzz once you decided to pursue music full time?
The Internet honestly. Social media. When I first decided to do the artist thing, I was in New York and had a regular 9 to 5. I hated every minute of it. I wanted to figure out how to do this music thing. I met a producer in L.A. that was doing some music for television shows. I went out to L.A., started making music, and put some music on MySpace. That’s actually how it began. I started gaining traction from that and people started gravitating towards what we were doing.
What can be expected from the EP ‘We’ve Met Before’?
I really wanted to kind of play on that whole idea of ‘you’ve heard of me, yes we’ve been grinding, yes we’ve been working really hard all through the years.’ Now it’s the time. Everything changes from this point on. Yes, we’ve met before. Kind of like that industry thing. When you’re at a party and you meet someone, and you’re like, ‘yeah, I’ve met you before.’ It’s kind of like that. But we’ve put a new energy feel. It feels like we got next and it’s about to happen.
