For MaceyOMaze “a full-circle moment’
By Nathan Metcalf
Special to the Reporter
When rapper MaceyOMaze from Fields Corner released “Father’d A Child” this spring, the song carried the weight of three generations.
He conceived it as a tribute to his father, who had been raised without a dad, but he also crafted it to a beat by Boston legend Edo.G, whose 1991 rallying cry for men to step up as parents, “Be a Father to Your Child,” helped put the Boston rap scene on the map.
“For me, it was about bridging a gap between the old and the young within the Black Boston community,” said the 22-year-old MaceyOMaze, speaking in the basement of the Boston Public Library’s Copley branch, clad in orange 3M Peltor headphones and a gray JNCO hoodie. “My pops grew up listening to Edo.G, and now I get to work with him. That’s a full-circle moment.”
If not for a chance meeting, the collaboration might not have happened. In 2021, MaceyOMaze and his manager, who goes by the name Ty, attended a community event where KRS-One, a pioneer of socially conscious hip-hop, was performing.
“They were some of the only young guys in the place, and that stood out to me,” Edo.G said. “I respect what the younger generation is doing — that’s their thing. But it’s not the music I listen to. What caught my attention with Macey was that he’s making real hip-hop.”
Born in Boston, MaceyOMaze spent parts of his childhood in foster care and homeless shelters before his family found stability in Fields Corner, “the first place my parents had in Boston as a family,” he said. “So, when people ask me where in Boston I’m from, that’s my neighborhood.”
It was there that his dad, who grew up fatherless in the ’80s, would play him Edo.G’s “Be a Father to Your Child.” Hearing that song and watching his father live by its message showed MaceyOMaze that hip-hop could both come from his own backyard and carry a message powerful enough to change lives.
As MaceyOMaze and Ty made their presence felt in Boston’s underground scene, he and Edo.G reconnected and decided to collaborate on an album. “To see their progression, from when I first met them to now, that’s beautiful,” Edo.G said. “That’s what made me want to produce the record and do the project.”
The result was “See You in Boston,” a project that combines the “boom bap” sound and socially conscious themes of hip-hop’s golden age with crisp, modern production and fresh rhymes. Among its tracks, “Father’d A Child” has stood out as MaceyOMaze’s most successful release, drawing more than 1,500 views on YouTube in less than two months.
Both songs — Edo.G’s in 1991 and MaceyOMaze’s more than three decades later — are rooted in the same idea: challenging stereotypes about absent Black fathers and celebrating the men who step up.
“It’s very important to have father figures in the Black community, especially with how the media makes us out to be deadbeats or animals,” MaceyOMaze said. “Truth is, we’re human beings like everyone else. We have kids, we raise them. It’s important to show, ‘No, that’s not the only thing that goes down in this life.’”
For him, that message goes hand in hand with hip-hop’s very essence. “Hip-hop has always been the voice of the oppressed,” he said. “And joy is a form of resistance. Us being happy is us showing that no matter what you throw at us, we’re going to figure out a way to be happy and still be us.”
That belief carries into his day job with Beat the Odds, a Dorchester nonprofit where he teaches young people audio engineering, music production, and mental health skills. The group also shot the “Father’d A Child” music video, which featured local fathers and their children.
“It just shows within hip-hop, young and old school can coexist and bring value to each other,” said Ty, clad in green and black Celtics gear. “Every generation, there’s a new young face that’s going to take over. I truly believe MaceyOMaze is going to be that one.”
The rapper is already looking ahead. He performed outside Massachusetts for the first time in Burlington, Vermont, last month, and hopes to tour internationally within two years. But for all his ambition, MaceyOMaze insists his goals remain simple.
“My motivation is to inspire more people to speak out for themselves, whatever form of expression they choose,” he said. “That’s what hip-hop has done for me. If I can do that for even one person, I’ll be happy.”
This story is part of a partnership between the Dorchester Reporter and the Boston University Department of Journalism.
