Sitting in a waiting room between a signed, billboard-sized photo of Jay-Z posted up on the Williamsburg Bridge and piles of Funk Flex memorabilia, I hear a snort laugh, followed by a high-pitched “Yooooo” that I’d recognize anywhere. The Kid Mero, the new host of Hot 97’s morning show, is live on air with his co-hosts—Shani Kulture, Miabelle, Kazeem Famuyide, and DJ Kast One—recapping the Grammys and discussing if Kendrick Lamar’s win for Best Rap Album makes him the greatest rapper of all time.

Yeah, it’s one of those obligatory morning radio topics made to give listeners something to consider other than the dread of their commute. But the Bronx-raised Mero—once a niche rap blogger penning stoned music reviews with thoughts like, “THESE NIGGAS SOUND LIKE BABY FROGS DOING DRAKE MIXTAPE JOINTS” about the Rich Kidz; then a pioneering podcaster as one half of the Bodega Boys with Desus Nice, where they captured the feel of shootin’ the shit on the corner; and then a television personality, again with Desus, on Viceland and Showtime, before their acidic breakup—plays ball. He sounds genuinely excited about the conversation and the takes of listeners calling in.

“This is New York, this is Hot 97,” he says, to the room. “They about to say ‘Hell no, Kendrick isn’t better than Melle Mel.’”

Right on cue, the first caller is tight that they’re even asking the question.

“Man, Kendrick definitely isn’t the GOAT, ain’t no album like Reasonable Doubt,” says the man on the phone; Mero makes an I told you so face at me. “I still bump that every morning on my way to work.”

Next on the line is a woman who is more gracious to Kendrick, but didn’t seem to get the memo that the East Coast-West Coast rivalry ended decades ago.

These are the exact type of tried-and-true New Yorkers and New York hip-hop heads the Bodega Boys blew up by parodying with their frequently unhinged back-and-forth. I wouldn’t call them Star and Buc Wild levels of problematic, but they spoke like they didn’t give a fuck. As a regular listener from its debut in 2015 up to when it shuttered in 2021, I related to the hyperlocal specificity of their conversations that brushed up against East Coast rap, local politics, gentrification, the masochism of Knicks fandom, and Twitter drama. Of the duo, Mero, born Joel Martinez, was the fast-talker, with impressions of folks you might run into ordering a salasito turkey sandwich at the deli or on a park bench in the middle of the day drinking a Corona and an effortless ability to riff on any subject; it sort of makes sense an observant New York everyman like him would end up as the voice of the city’s most famous hip-hop radio station.

For more than half of my life, I’ve been complaining about Hot 97 as an out-of -touch corporate relic with no taste. But it’s a sleeping giant, a citywide institution that was formative in my development as a rap fan. I remember sitting in the back of my dad’s truck on Flatbush Ave, as bombs were dropped on Jigga and Kiss, on Fab and Mary J., on Buju Banton and Beenie Man. I knew the names of all the hosts; kids would casually talk about what they heard on the radio at school. My walk through the halls of the station was a little bit surreal—it was a lot quieter and more doctor’s office-like than I expected—as all the lore came rushing back to me: the freestyles, the beefs, Funk Flex being Funk Flex.

Mornings With Mero replaces Ebro in the Morning—hosted by Ebro Darden, Peter Rosenberg, and Laura Stylez—which held down the AM slot for years before the show was unexpectedly cancelled in December. Their main competitor is The Breakfast Club over on Power 105.1; basically the Charlamagne Tha God show at this point. I never really liked either program, they always felt both disconnected from the hip-hop of the city and oddly resistant to the fact that the heartbeat of the genre had moved elsewhere. I don’t expect Mero to come in and radically shift the direction of the station by forcing them to play MIKE and Ken Carson or whatever (when I was in the studio I heard their usual mix of stuff like Kehlani’s “Folded” and Chris Brown and Bryson Tiller’s “It Depends”), but he does have the opportunity to make New York radio sound like New York radio again, even if the 2026 version of himself is tamed-down and fully enmeshed into his life in the Jersey suburbs.

Later in the day, I pull up to Mero’s podcast studio in Lower Manhattan where he records his Victory Light show with co-hosts Rainey Ovalle and Lizbel Ortiz. (He is also a regular on 7PM in Brooklyn With Carmelo Anthony.) Compared to the rigid structure over at Hot, Victory Light is more free-flowing and overtly political. In this episode, they jump around from Nicki Minaj’s Trump shilling to why so many Latino dudes work for ICE, backed up with personal anecdotes and jokes. Afterwards, Mero slips on a puffer coat and the sort of shiesty Max B has been rocking and sinks into one of the cozy couches in the studio, dozing off a little. I joke to him that I always thought he was one of those Stephen A. Smith machine types who don’t need sleep and he immediately snaps back up to bust out an impression of the ESPN loudmouth. From there, that kicked off our conversation about what it means to be the voice of New York hip-hop radio in an era where that doesn’t mean the same thing that it used to.

Pitchfork: What are some of your earliest radio memories?

The Kid Mero: You see Gabe P and On The Radar and all of the On The Radar copycats? Well, that just used to be the radio. That used to be Flex; that used to be Clue. Let’s say me and you are in a crew, we gonna go up to the radio and spit a diss over “Who Shot Ya?” at another crew. So at eight or nine o’clock I’d get like three of my peoples in the car with some haze and listen to freestyles. If you go on YouTube and type in “Funk Flex The Lox” right now, you’ll find a nine-minute freestyle that’s so raw and organic; one of them is drunk, they’re tryin’ not to curse.

Are there bars from those freestyles still ingrained in your brain?

Oh! The N.O.R.E freestyle where he says, “Shoot at your feet, make you do the Puff dance to Perfection.” He was all like these bars are terrible, but the staccato ass way he was saying it was so ill. And then, that time Jada was like, “Jada come through controlling the Porsche/Haters shaking like Ali holding the torch.” That was right around the time Ali was up there holding the torch at the Olympics, but he was wild shaky with it, because y’know [laughs]. I couldn’t believe he said that shit, I was like, [white bro voice] “Bruh, he’s the best.” Then Styles came through and scared the fuck out of me, with, “I’m in the car with my man and he’s holding a missile.” Yeah, I believe you bro.

I always believed every word that came out of Styles’ mouth.

Yeah, State Property, too.

Their freestyles aren’t brought up as much, they can be a little lost to the era.

I don’t want to blame Jay-Z, but hey. But to me they always felt kind of tossed together. They were from all over Philly, not one of those groups that grew up together and you can tell. They made some ill clothes for hiding drugs, though, that shit was crazy. That shit had like 13 stash pockets. It was like Carhartt, but for niggas with guns.

Was there a specific radio personality you felt connected to?

Stretch and Bob. My cousin was taping the radio shows.

What was it about them?

They felt like dudes from the block. Stretch was more reserved, but Bobbito was like, “Yo, that’s Jose; that’s Frankie.” Before that radio to me was Quiet Storm. Obviously it was a college radio show, so it was real indie, do it yourself vibes, but that’s what resonated with me about it. I’ve rarely had anybody finance me. And they had everyone going up there. You know how hard it is to get someone from New York to be like, “Yo, that’s cool”? I’ve always wanted everything I do to be like that. Money can’t unlame you.

Back then Hot 97 was so heavily mythologized, wasn’t it?

[New York roughneck voice] “It’s crazy up there, Shot 97, you might get clapped out there.” Yeah, bro. If you were a rapper, a comedian, somebody of the culture, you had to go up there. I’m tryna bring that shit back so that anybody a part of hip-hop or like this urban—wait, I hate the word “urban.”

I was about to say you sound like an executive trying to sign me to a 360 deal when you said “urban.”

Yeah, motherfuckers make shit sound so corny. We was talking about Bad Bunny at the Grammys earlier and they was talking about some musica urbana, which is urban music in spanish [laughs]. What the fuck? You mean reggaeton? Latin music?

But yeah, bro, I want to introduce the dude who drives the 42 bus or slices meat behind the deli counter to Xaviersobased. Why not?

I saw you flick up with Xavier. Are you fucking with the music?

At first, I looked it up and was like, “This shit is fried and weird.” I didn’t understand it. Then, I went to the show at Webster Hall. See, I never was a hockey fan, and then two years ago I went to my first game and now I’m a Devils fan. They were moshing, niggas were throwing Dominican flags in the air, it was fire.

That’s a real New Yorker.

Yeah, he skates. Dominican. I watched a Nardwuar interview where he says he does graffiti. Yo, he’s literally me. That could be my son. I was doing the same shit. And back then they was telling me, “Skating is white boy shit, graffiti is corny, get some fucking girls.” But you could either be a dickhead about it, or be one of the dudes who bridges the gap and connects with their kid over it.

What have you and your kids connected over?

Playboi Carti. That first happened probably around the time the self-titled dropped. It was at the time when all the old heads were calling him and Yachty mumble rap, but my son was running “Magnolia” into the ground. I started absorbing it by osmosis.

What did you like about it?

I had to listen to it differently. Carti isn’t motherfuckin’ Inspectah Deck. Give me the baby noises. Make shit that slaps. Use your voice as an instrument.

Even going back to your time as a music critic at Vice reviewing everything from Crystal Castles to Paramore, I feel like you’ve always been pretty open to new music.

Shoutout Drew Millard. He’d send me five random albums, like Surfer Blood, French Montana, and Lady Gaga, and I would roll up a blunt and just start writing about what they made me think. Yo, this shit sound like a bear with aluminum foil around his dick jerking off in the woods or whatever [laughs]. My style of writing was always a gut thing; I wasn’t going to have any cool SAT words. I just wanted to see if the music made me feel something, anything.

It was really raw and out of pocket, I remember one time you said Lady Saw looked like Tony Allen.

Was I wrong [laughs]? But that was the whole thing. I was just talking into the ether and then it resonated with people because they met me and were like, “Oh, that’s really just him.”

Do you miss writing? I feel like you really notice when a writer becomes a podcaster and stops writing, all of their thoughts become a lot more—

Vibe based. Nah, yeah, that’s why I still try to do it. It organizes my thoughts. How else are you supposed to transition from talking about some heavy political shit to a dude getting his wig punched off?

I tend to think writing things out can push your curiosity, too, which isn’t always a common trait in the hip-hop podcasting space.

Everybody’s too fucking cool. I like thinking back to when I was younger on Astor Place when Tower Records was there—it was huge, it felt like a college campus—and they’d have these listening stations that were all over the place. So now I’m listening to drum’n’bass, house music, metal, hardcore, EPMD, all in the same day. And then, if you come from graffiti, you know graffiti writers are all over the place.

Did you have graffiti writers that you looked up to?

A lot of them, even though I didn’t know who they were until later on. Dudes in the Bronx I’d just see up all the time. Bester. Since—he was fucking everywhere with these massive stompers. But graffiti is ill ’cause you’ll think it’s all Jamaican and Dominican kids and then you’ll finally meet someone and they’re a white kid from Boston who listens to punk rock. You’ll be in the car letting them play whatever because you’re riding around bombing. What is this? The Offspring? Aight cool.

And graffiti is fascinating, partially because it’s always been way harder to commodify than rap music.

It’s almost impossible. It’s fucked up my favorite things are mad hard to monetize. Being funny. Skating. Graffiti. Fighting. Smoking weed. I’ve been wanting to do a graffiti show forever.

They’ve been trying to figure out how to do that while keeping it authentic since, like, Wild Style. Remember the scene where they go downtown to Soho and all the white people want to basically pimp them out?

It’s always been like that. But these days it’s just one of those things I love to do and money don’t got nothing to do with it. If I’m not having fun making it, it’s not gonna be good anyway.

One thing I noticed at Hot 97 earlier was that during that “Is Kendrick the GOAT?” conversation, your opinions were a little scaled back. Do you think that being in the machine makes you have to think harder about what you’re going to say?

Bro, I’m fucking 42 years old. My obvious answer is Jay-Z, it’s Big. But with radio you’re moreso doing it for other people. Yeah, I’m quarterbacking this shit, but I’m not gonna overwhelm you. I want it to be interactive. I want people to call. And this is New York, I knew the people would come in with the takes for me. I like giving people the floor, it’s not just me monologuing like it was when I was blogging. I’m not just gonna look down the barrel of the camera and talk shit. That shit is weird. You gotta be a real weirdo to just yap.

How do you modernize the radio format?

You gotta just do it. Move fast. But I’m just getting my sea legs, it’s only my third week. But we just gotta keep adding. Bring in more producers. Bring in more cameras. Go full Howard Stern with it. Let’s put this in front of people. Let people see the energy in the room. Have people call me that called me yesterday. Get new rappers up here. We have to just try everything.

There’s a lot of people at the station who have been there a long time. Do you think they’d be resistant if you tried to change too much?

If that happens I’m doing my job. They should be confused. I want the kids to love this like how I love this shit. I try to look at shit through the lens of my oldest son. He’s 14. I went to the Max B show at Paramount and he asked me if I can get him a selfie with French Montana. I was like, “Really?” My 12 year old just discovered 50 Cent’s music and before that he only knew him as an internet troll.

You put him onto the mixtapes?

For him it was “Many Men,” you know it got the skit intro and everything. But I was like, “Yo, you wanna hear 50?” Guess Who’s Back. 50 Cent Is the Future. All the G-Unit radio. Whooooo Kid. These little niggas don’t really understand. When 50 and Banks would come on and freestyle over other people’s songs that was the pinnacle to me. Me and my brother Tito would go get instrumental CDs, smoke a blunt, and rap over them shit for hours like we was them.

Was there pressure taking over for Ebro and them? I know they said that they thought they were cancelled for their leftist political opinions.

No, I know Ebro and Laura and Rosenberg. But I didn’t talk to them about it or anything. I was negotiating and whenever I’m attaching a dollar sign to some shit I don’t want to jinx it. But if it was a political thing I don’t see how that is because I think I’m to the left of Ebro.

Did they (Hot 97 has been owned by Mediaco Holding Inc. since 2019) make any conditions? Are you allowed to talk about, say, the Palestinian genocide on air?

I haven’t been told not to talk about anything. So far we’ve talked about Minnesota and ICE and white supremacy at seven thirty in the morning. I don’t think there’s anything I could say, except like “Go shoot the president” that could get them to say something to me. They didn’t say anything about Palestine.

If they did, would you still have taken the job?

Maybe, but just because I’m a grimy Bronx motherfucker. Then, I would have went “suck my dick” and took my checks before they got me outta’ there.

Were you excited to compete with The Breakfast Club? I know you and Desus had a rocky history with DJ Envy.

One hundred percent. Charlamagne is my guy, he is one of the first people that gave me my shot on TV. I got mad love for him. But that other guy? He’s like Eric Snow, just bringing the ball up to give it to the real player.

When you and Desus broke up were you lost about what to do next?

Nah, I had the map, bro. I’ve been at this since before the Bodega Boys. Mike Franceca told me [impression], “Be yourself. They used to tell me I sounded too New York, my voice was too New York. I said, ‘Screw you guys, if I got New York I don’t need anywhere else.” And as soon as he said that a lightbulb went off in my head.

Was the split between you and Desus bitter? Have you guys talked?

I don’t really talk to bro at all. For me it’s like you’re playing for the Knicks and you’re homies with Landry Shamet. But you’re not homies because you’re homies, you’re homies because you’re playing for the Knicks. We worked well doing this thing together, but at some point it was gonna end. And when it ended I was like, “I know what I want to do, do you want to do this together or not?” I just bounced.

Do you worry about losing that edge and curiosity in your new phase?

I wouldn’t say I’m afraid, but I’m aware of it. I don’t want to be that guy. I just gotta not overthink it, and follow the instincts that got me here.