Mario Wants Us To Learn Our History And "Rewrite It"
The power of music cannot be denied. From Gil Scott Heron’s “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised” to Kendrick Lamar’s “Alright,” a soul-stirring melody can galvanize the masses and uplift the spirits of those fighting against societal wrongs like racial injustice. That same energy can be channeled and molded into a soulful number with an impact just as powerful. Enter Mario‘s smooth single, “Rewrite It.”
After the bassline sets the song’s tempo and the lyric: “Got in a system that we ’bout to get out,” starts the first verse, you soon realize it’s a declaration—a melodic proclamation, encouraging our Black brothers and sisters to “uncover your eyes,” stand up together, and really see the power we have as a historically oppressed people. “Rewriting the hold damn history/ Rewriting the things that were taught to me,” he echoes over the pulsating chorus. “You see the whole damn world/ It’s time for us to rewrite it…Rewrite it, yeah, rewrite it.”
With movements like Black Lives Matter, it’s a stance many have expressed and can agree with. Peaceful protests and calls for change continue to happen around the world, and the Baltimore native has been using this time to not only further educate himself but to also do his part in the form of song. “I just wanted to use my voice and spread a powerful message,” he explains during NUEVO’s Instagram Live Q&A. “I feel like for us, it’s another wake-up call. When I say us, I mean melanated people, whether you’re in the industry or not in the industry.”
The unjust killings of unarmed Black women and men like Breonna Taylor and George Floyd have truly caused a chain reaction of eye-opening conversations, learnings, and revelations by Black and non-Black people alike. If you were to ask Mario what the phrase “Black lives matter” means to him, he’d simply say, “It’s a call to action to study, to understand, to fight for what you believe in.”
He continues candidly, “It’s a call to action for us to unite more and do more things that will directly affect our communities. It’s a call to action for all of those people that are out there of many different races, fighting for the cause, to show them what our unity can do. It’s time for us to really be the change that we want to see.”
R&B Spotlight’s Cory Taylor sat with Mario to catch up with the multi-faceted creative about today’s climate around social justice, where he thinks the solution for change lies, and his upcoming Closer to Mars EP. Watch the full interview below.
On how he’s been during this pandemic and days of quarantine:
I’ve been doing nothing too different from what my normal daily life was like, meditating, definitely was doing a lot more yoga since I was home a lot. And just being healthy, man. I’ve always been health-conscious, but I just took it another step of studying more and reading a lot more. Just being kind to myself a lot more. Kind of stay and keep my anxiety at a low, because it’s just so much crazy energy out there right now. I think a lot of us are reacting right now, we’re reacting to what’s going on, but I think we also got to be proactive moving forward.
On coming up with the TikTok challenge for his single “Closer”:
I was bored in my backyard and one of my dancers came over. I’m like, “Dude, do this little routine to this record I just put out.” Then we just put it out as a TikTok challenge. People started doing it, then it started going crazy. We just had fun with it.
On the civil unrest around the killings of our Black brothers and sisters:
There are so many different levels of things that we need to fix. We need to focus on, of course, okay, defund the police. We need to focus on getting convictions, continue to get that. That needs to be our main focus, because at the end of the day. We need immediate convictions. We don’t need to be waiting three, four months. We don’t need to be.
On the other side of things, we’ve collectively got to start studying more. We’ve got to start saving our money. We’ve got to start building our own businesses, which there’s a lot of melanated-owned businesses out there. And we need to just start studying and reading more, and really understanding laws, and understanding what it is that we need.
One of the things that I’m passionate about, and that I want to start seeing more and speaking out more on is critical mass. When you have certain states that are majority melanated people, but then you have a lot of white people in office that are making the choices. We need to be making choices when we’re the majority because we know what we need.
On career goals outside of music:
I can’t wait until people really get a chance to really know me outside of what they know, because I create across the board—I’m a writer, I’m an actor, I’m a singer, I’m a performer, but I’m just a creative. And it’s something that I’ve really been investing in, my time, so I’m looking forward to sharing this. Y’all going to see movies one day, whether it be Netflix or other platforms that make sense for it. And when y’all see the credits, and y’all see that I’m behind it, you’re going to be like, “What?! We had no idea this guy was…” (Smiles) You know what I’m saying? So I’m really excited about that because it’s just going to show that we can do anything.
On working on the set of Empire:
It was inspirational to see that a show could last six seasons and still be in the millions, the audience. As a creator, that’s a creative’s wish. You’re working with Terrence, working with Taraji. The fact that we can have that level of success in film. You have multiple, different cultures and people coming throughout the show. It has so many different people. If you look at the cast list over the six years, what it did, it just lets you know how powerful art is, how powerful creativity is. I loved working with Terrence. I learned a lot from him as an actor. Taraji, shout out to the DMV. She’s doing some really powerful things in the mental health space.
On his upcoming endeavors as the country is in quarantine:
Mariovip.com is the site I just started, and so I’m going to be doing virtual tours. I’ve got new merch that I’m putting out called “The Big Payback,” that’s about to be lit. I’m giving back to a lot of communities and melanated-owned businesses, and just inspiring personal economic growth. But yeah, man, we about to be back out here.
