The first time Andy Mineo knew he wanted to be a performer, he was standing backstage at the “Unashamed Tour” around 2010. The New York rapper, who went by C-Lite at the time, was slated to appear with Lecrae for a performance of the Rehab cut “Background.”
“I show up at the event and I’m just waiting for my part to come up,” Mineo says in an exclusive interview with HipHopDX, “and I’m watching them all perform and I’m like, ‘This is incredible. This is next level seeing the energy and excitement and how many people they had packed out in the arena.’ I was like, ‘I wanna be a part of something like this.’”
Fast forward six years and Mineo signed to Reach Records, was featured as an opening act on other “Unashamed Tours” and is now is headlining his own tour. Utilizing lessons he’s learned from the Church Clothes rapper, he is currently on the road promoting his Uncomfortable album, which debuted at #10 on Billboard’s Top 200 albums chart.
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“It’s crazy to have toured with Lecrae, opened up for him,” he says, “and now being on my own tours and bringing out other people that I have open up for me and kinda giving them the same experience I had, which is nuts.”
Mineo, whose “Uncomfortable Tour” runs through May 8, says that one of the favorite parts of his job is hitting the road. He makes music with the vision of the performance in mind and knows the impact that a live show has on the audience.
“I love touring because one of the things I get to do is touch the people the music has impacted and hear from them personally,” he says. “For some artists, that’s a job, but for me, that’s really part of my heartbeat is to like, I really enjoy giving people amazing experiences and touching them and talking with them and inspiring them.”
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At a recent stop on the “Uncomfortable Tour,” a man came up to him after the show and explained how seeing the album cut “Strange Motions” live really impacted him.
“He’s like, ‘Man, it came to life, that song being about addiction,’” Mineo says. “And he got to share his story of addiction to drugs and alcohol for a long time. So it really brings an album to life.”
Following in Lecrae’s footsteps, Mineo has signed San Diego-based artist Wordsplayed to his Miner League label after building a friendship with him. The duo released the parody party song “Martinelli’s” last New Year’s. Wordsplayed released his Clowntown album last month and is now opening for Mineo on the “Uncomfortable Tour.”
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“I believe in him as a dude, his character, his competency and his creativity, really,” Mineo says. “So we’re working together. He’s making his own splashes and he’s got his first project out. Now he’s on tour with me. I also think the dude’s hilarious, so he might have a future in some other things outside of music, especially when it comes to writing.”
Mineo is continuing to expand his own platform as he is slated to perform with Logic tomorrow (April 9) at Wabash College in Crawfordsville, IN. He sees that the two artists run parallel lanes in the rap game.
“Logic’s killing it right now,” he says of the The Incredible True Story rapper. “He just finished a world tour that sold out. He’s a phenomenal artist. He has a very similar kinda trajectory to me, which is we share a similar trajectory in a sense that we don’t have big radio play or anything, but we have strong fan bases that come out and support our music and love what we do. So I’m excited to get on stage with him and rock that concert.”
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The Reach Records rapper also performed at SXSW on Sway’s stage. He says he enjoys the experience of the festival because of the intimacy and ability to connect to so many people in the industry.
“You can just run into everybody,” he says, “so I was running into artists and producers and people that had wanted to work with me or had heard about me, just hanging out in the street. So a lot of relationships have been built there, a lot of phone numbers were exchanged and it’s exciting.”
Besides making business connections, Mineo once again emphasizes the importance of relating to the fans who come to his music for more than a good time.
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“That for me, is what some of the most exciting stuff is, just seeing someone stumble over to me drunk after the show and like grab me by the shoulder as they’re about to fall over and be like, ‘I love your music. It’s so inspiring. I needed this,’” he says of SXSW. “Those are the things, ‘cause my music and my message there’s a lot of hope in it, so I enjoy being able to mix it up around people from all different walks of life and be able to share my music and my message and my hope with them.”
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