{"id":1764265,"date":"2026-02-06T14:45:53","date_gmt":"2026-02-06T11:45:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1764265"},"modified":"2026-02-06T14:45:53","modified_gmt":"2026-02-06T11:45:53","slug":"an-interview-with-the-kid-mero-the-new-best-hope-of-hot-97","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1764265","title":{"rendered":"An Interview With the Kid Mero, the New Best Hope of Hot 97"},"content":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/media.pitchfork.com\/photos\/6983a1b60b8a631cd5999ef3\/16:9\/w_1280,c_limit\/P4K25_OffTheDome_2x1.png”]<\/p>\n

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Columns<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

An Interview With the Kid Mero, the New Best Hope of Hot 97<\/h1>\n
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Alphonse Pierre\u2019s Off the Dome column covers songs, mixtapes, albums, scenes, snippets, movies, Meek Mill tweets, fashion trends\u2014and anything else that catches his attention. This week, Al links up with the Kid Mero, the new host of Hot 97\u2019s morning show, to talk about the future of New York radio.<\/div>\n
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By <\/span>Alphonse Pierre<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

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Graphic by Chris Panicker; Photo by Templeton Wright<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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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 \u201cYooooo\u201d that I\u2019d recognize anywhere. The Kid Mero, the new host of Hot 97\u2019s morning show, is live on air with his co-hosts\u2014Shani Kulture, Miabelle, Kazeem Famuyide, and DJ Kast One\u2014recapping the Grammys and discussing if Kendrick Lamar\u2019s win for Best Rap Album makes him the greatest rapper of all time.<\/p>\n

Yeah, it\u2019s 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\u2014once a niche rap blogger penning stoned music reviews with thoughts like, \u201cTHESE NIGGAS SOUND LIKE BABY FROGS DOING DRAKE MIXTAPE JOINTS\u201d 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\u2019 the shit on the corner; and then a television personality, again with Desus, on Viceland and Showtime, before their acidic breakup\u2014plays ball. He sounds genuinely excited about the conversation and the takes of listeners calling in.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is New York, this is Hot 97,\u201d he says, to the room. \u201cThey about to say \u2018Hell no, Kendrick isn\u2019t better than Melle Mel.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Right on cue, the first caller is tight that they\u2019re even asking the question.<\/p>\n

\u201cMan, Kendrick definitely isn\u2019t the GOAT, ain\u2019t no album like Reasonable Doubt<\/em>,\u201d says the man on the phone; Mero makes an I told you so<\/em> face at me. \u201cI still bump that every morning on my way to work.\u201d<\/p>\n

Next on the line is a woman who is more gracious to Kendrick, but didn\u2019t seem to get the memo that the East Coast-West Coast rivalry ended decades ago.<\/p>\n

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\u2019t call them Star and Buc Wild levels of problematic, but they spoke like they didn\u2019t 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\u2019s most famous hip-hop radio station.<\/p>\n

For more than half of my life, I\u2019ve been complaining about Hot 97 as an out-of -touch corporate relic with no taste. But it\u2019s 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\u2019s 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\u2014it was a lot quieter and more doctor\u2019s office-like than I expected\u2014as all the lore came rushing back to me: the freestyles, the beefs, Funk Flex being Funk Flex.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Mornings With Mero<\/em> replaces Ebro in the Morning<\/em>\u2014hosted by Ebro Darden, Peter Rosenberg, and Laura Stylez\u2014which held down the AM slot for years before the show was unexpectedly cancelled in December. Their main competitor is The Breakfast Club<\/em> 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\u2019t 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\u2019s \u201cFolded\u201d and Chris Brown and Bryson Tiller\u2019s \u201cIt Depends\u201d), 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.<\/p>\n

Later in the day, I pull up to Mero\u2019s podcast studio in Lower Manhattan where he records his Victory Light<\/em> show with co-hosts Rainey Ovalle and Lizbel Ortiz. (He is also a regular on 7PM in Brooklyn With Carmelo Anthony.<\/em>) 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\u2019s 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\u2019t 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\u2019t mean the same thing that it used to.<\/p>\n

Pitchfork: What are some of your earliest radio memories?<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u2019s say me and you are in a crew, we gonna go up to the radio and spit a diss over \u201cWho Shot Ya?\u201d at another crew. So at eight or nine o\u2019clock I\u2019d get like three of my peoples in the car with some haze and listen to freestyles. If you go on YouTube and type in \u201cFunk Flex The Lox\u201d right now, you\u2019ll find a nine-minute freestyle that\u2019s so raw and organic; one of them is drunk, they\u2019re tryin\u2019 not to curse.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Are there bars from those freestyles still ingrained in your brain?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oh! The N.O.R.E freestyle where he says, \u201cShoot at your feet, make you do the Puff dance to Perfection.\u201d 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, \u201cJada come through controlling the Porsche\/Haters shaking like Ali holding the torch.\u201d 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\u2019know [laughs<\/em>]. I couldn\u2019t believe he said that shit, I was like, [white bro voice<\/em>] \u201cBruh, he\u2019s the best.\u201d Then Styles came through and scared the fuck out of me, with, \u201cI\u2019m in the car with my man and he\u2019s holding a missile.\u201d Yeah, I believe you bro.<\/p>\n

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I always believed every word that came out of Styles\u2019 mouth.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, State Property, too.<\/p>\n

Their freestyles aren\u2019t brought up as much, they can be a little lost to the era.<\/strong><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

Was there a specific radio personality you felt connected to?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Stretch and Bob. My cousin was taping the radio shows.<\/p>\n

What was it about them?<\/strong><\/p>\n

They felt like dudes from the block. Stretch was more reserved, but Bobbito was like, \u201cYo, that\u2019s Jose; that\u2019s Frankie.\u201d 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\u2019s what resonated with me about it. I\u2019ve 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, \u201cYo, that\u2019s cool\u201d? I\u2019ve always wanted everything I do to be like that. Money can\u2019t unlame you.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Back then Hot 97 was so heavily mythologized, wasn\u2019t it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

[New York roughneck voice<\/em>] \u201cIt\u2019s crazy up there, Shot 97, you might get clapped out there.\u201d Yeah, bro. If you were a rapper, a comedian, somebody of the culture, you had to go up there. I\u2019m tryna bring that shit back so that anybody a part of hip-hop or like this urban\u2014wait, I hate the word \u201curban.\u201d<\/p>\n

I was about to say you sound like an executive trying to sign me to a 360 deal when you said \u201curban.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n

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<\/em>]. What the fuck? You mean reggaeton? Latin music?<\/p>\n

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?<\/p>\n

I saw you flick up with Xavier. Are you fucking with the music?<\/strong><\/p>\n

At first, I looked it up and was like, \u201cThis shit is fried and weird.\u201d I didn\u2019t 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\u2019m a Devils fan. They were moshing, niggas were throwing Dominican flags in the air, it was fire.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s a real New Yorker.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yeah, he skates. Dominican. I watched a Nardwuar interview where he says he does graffiti. Yo, he\u2019s literally me. That could be my son. I was doing the same shit. And back then they was telling me, \u201cSkating is white boy shit, graffiti is corny, get some fucking girls.\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

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What have you and your kids connected over?<\/strong><\/p>\n

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 \u201cMagnolia\u201d into the ground. I started absorbing it by osmosis.<\/p>\n

What did you like about it?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I had to listen to it differently. Carti isn\u2019t motherfuckin\u2019 Inspectah Deck. Give me the baby noises. Make shit that slaps. Use your voice as an instrument.<\/p>\n

Even going back to your time as a music critic at Vice<\/em> reviewing everything from Crystal Castles to Paramore, I feel like you\u2019ve always been pretty open to new music.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Shoutout Drew Millard. He\u2019d 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<\/em>]. My style of writing was always a gut thing; I wasn\u2019t going to have any cool SAT words. I just wanted to see if the music made me feel something, anything.<\/p>\n

It was really raw and out of pocket, I remember one time you said Lady Saw looked like Tony Allen.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Was I wrong [laughs<\/em>]? 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, \u201cOh, that\u2019s really just him.\u201d<\/p>\n

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<\/strong>\u2014<\/p>\n

Vibe based. Nah, yeah, that\u2019s 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?<\/p>\n

I tend to think writing things out can push your curiosity, too, which isn\u2019t always a common trait in the hip-hop podcasting space.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Everybody\u2019s too fucking cool. I like thinking back to when I was younger on Astor Place when Tower Records was there\u2014it was huge, it felt like a college campus\u2014and they\u2019d have these listening stations that were all over the place. So now I\u2019m listening to drum\u2019n\u2019bass, 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.<\/p>\n

Did you have graffiti writers that you looked up to?<\/strong><\/p>\n

A lot of them, even though I didn\u2019t know who they were until later on. Dudes in the Bronx I\u2019d just see up all the time. Bester. Since\u2014he was fucking everywhere with these massive stompers. But graffiti is ill \u2019cause you\u2019ll think it\u2019s all Jamaican and Dominican kids and then you\u2019ll finally meet someone and they\u2019re a white kid from Boston who listens to punk rock. You\u2019ll be in the car letting them play whatever because you\u2019re riding around bombing. What is this? The Offspring? Aight cool.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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And graffiti is fascinating, partially because it\u2019s always been way harder to commodify than rap music.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s almost impossible. It\u2019s fucked up my favorite things are mad hard to monetize. Being funny. Skating. Graffiti. Fighting. Smoking weed. I\u2019ve been wanting to do a graffiti show forever.<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve been trying to figure out how to do that while keeping it authentic since, like, Wild Style<\/em>. Remember the scene where they go downtown to Soho and all the white people want to basically pimp them out?<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s always been like that. But these days it\u2019s just one of those things I love to do and money don\u2019t got nothing to do with it. If I\u2019m not having fun making it, it\u2019s not gonna be good anyway.<\/p>\n

One thing I noticed at Hot 97 earlier was that during that \u201cIs Kendrick the GOAT?\u201d 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\u2019re going to say?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Bro, I\u2019m fucking 42 years old. My obvious answer is Jay-Z, it\u2019s Big. But with radio you\u2019re moreso doing it for other people. Yeah, I\u2019m quarterbacking this shit, but I\u2019m 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\u2019s not just me monologuing like it was when I was blogging. I\u2019m 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.<\/p>\n

How do you modernize the radio format?<\/strong><\/p>\n

You gotta just do it. Move fast. But I\u2019m just getting my sea legs, it\u2019s 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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot of people at the station who have been there a long time. Do you think they\u2019d be resistant if you tried to change too much?<\/strong><\/p>\n

If that happens I\u2019m 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\u2019s 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, \u201cReally?\u201d My 12 year old just discovered 50 Cent\u2019s music and before that he only knew him as an internet troll.<\/p>\n

You put him onto the mixtapes?<\/strong><\/p>\n

For him it was \u201cMany Men,\u201d you know it got the skit intro and everything. But I was like, \u201cYo, you wanna hear 50?\u201d Guess Who\u2019s Back<\/em>. 50 Cent Is the Future.<\/em> All the G-Unit radio. Whooooo Kid. These little niggas don\u2019t really understand. When 50 and Banks would come on and freestyle over other people\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Was there pressure taking over for Ebro and them? I know they said that they thought they were cancelled for their leftist political opinions.<\/strong><\/p>\n

No, I know Ebro and Laura and Rosenberg. But I didn\u2019t talk to them about it or anything. I was negotiating and whenever I\u2019m attaching a dollar sign to some shit I don\u2019t want to jinx it. But if it was a political thing I don\u2019t see how that is because I think I\u2019m to the left of Ebro.<\/p>\n

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?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I haven\u2019t been told not to talk about anything. So far we\u2019ve talked about Minnesota and ICE and white supremacy at seven thirty in the morning. I don\u2019t think there\u2019s anything I could say, except like \u201cGo shoot the president\u201d that could get them to say something to me. They didn\u2019t say anything about Palestine.<\/p>\n

If they did, would you still have taken the job?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Maybe, but just because I\u2019m a grimy Bronx motherfucker. Then, I would have went \u201csuck my dick\u201d and took my checks before they got me outta\u2019 there.<\/p>\n

Were you excited to compete with The Breakfast Club<\/em>? I know you and Desus had a rocky history with DJ Envy.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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\u2019s like Eric Snow, just bringing the ball up to give it to the real player.<\/p>\n

When you and Desus broke up were you lost about what to do next?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Nah, I had the map, bro. I\u2019ve been at this since before the Bodega Boys. Mike Franceca told me [impression]<\/em>, \u201cBe yourself. They used to tell me I sounded too New York, my voice was too New York. I said, \u2018Screw you guys, if I got New York I don\u2019t need anywhere else.\u201d And as soon as he said that a lightbulb went off in my head.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Was the split between you and Desus bitter? Have you guys talked?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I don\u2019t really talk to bro at all. For me it\u2019s like you\u2019re playing for the Knicks and you\u2019re homies with Landry Shamet. But you\u2019re not homies because you\u2019re homies, you\u2019re homies because you\u2019re 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, \u201cI know what I want to do, do you want to do this together or not?\u201d I just bounced.<\/p>\n

Do you worry about losing that edge and curiosity in your new phase?<\/strong><\/p>\n

I wouldn\u2019t say I\u2019m afraid, but I\u2019m aware of it. I don\u2019t want to be that guy. I just gotta not overthink it, and follow the instincts that got me here.<\/p>\n

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[analyse_source url=”http:\/\/pitchfork.com\/thepitch\/an-interview-with-the-kid-mero-the-new-best-hope-of-hot-97\/”]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/media.pitchfork.com\/photos\/6983a1b60b8a631cd5999ef3\/16:9\/w_1280,c_limit\/P4K25_OffTheDome_2x1.png”] Columns An Interview With the Kid Mero, the New Best Hope of Hot 97 Alphonse Pierre\u2019s Off the Dome column covers songs, mixtapes, albums, scenes, snippets, movies, Meek Mill tweets, fashion trends\u2014and anything else that catches his attention. This week, Al links up with the Kid Mero, the new host of Hot […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[226,54],"class_list":["post-1764265","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-crawlmanager","tag-pitchfork-com"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1764265","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1764265"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1764265\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1764265"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1764265"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1764265"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}