Dispatches from the label desk
Notes on MASTO, straight from the label desk. No middleman.
Dutch on one side, Cameroonian on the other, raised in South Minneapolis. Ask MASTO which part matters most and it's the South Side, every time. You can hear all of it in the music though. The melodies run cold. The drums don't. Somewhere in between there was a lane nobody was using, so he took it.
“CLOSER” sits at 220,000 streams and climbing. No playlist deals, no ads, nobody pushing buttons behind a curtain. There is no curtain. MASTO writes, records, mixes and films everything himself, and FOREVER is six more tracks made exactly that way. Slower? Sure. But it's his, all of it.
Self-contained doesn't mean solo. The circle is just small on purpose: rappers KDNG and Preesh Always, Gavin Stacey on production, and Shiv, who produced “CLOSER.” Minneapolis doesn't have a machine for this sound yet. Cool. They're building it themselves, one session at a time.
Watch the Minneapolis underground long enough and you keep seeing the same face. MASTO was in the building for SoSoCamo at 7th St Entry, the little room attached to First Avenue where half this city's history got started. He's been backstage at seventhirtyatmorning shows too. Not networking. He'd be at these shows regardless. His name just keeps climbing the flyer.
Ask about influences and Lil Tecca comes up first, no hesitation. A kid with a laptop and some melodies, no cosign, and it worked anyway. That rewired what felt possible. You'll hear the lineage in the catalog, somewhere near Rich Amiri and Yung Fazo, but the late-night lyric-forward stuff is all him. Borrowed the blueprint, not the building.
Press, interviews, and everything else: stephanie@publicrecordsmusic.com