MENDII: BEEN THAT GUY!

A lot can happen in nine years. People change, friendships drift, and sometimes the things we once cared about have to take a backseat while life takes over. Then, by some Herculean miracle, someone you knew back then resurfaces with something new to say.

Mendii has just released DARK, a six-track EP that finds him exploring questions of identity, ambition, exhaustion and the complicated business of being human. It’s his latest step in a musical journey that has seen periods of activity, stretches of silence and changes in circumstance. But for me, listening to him now also means remembering the guy I met back in 2017.

Because before DARK, there was Societal Blues. And before any of that, there was just Mendii.

BEFORE THE MUSIC BECAME A COMPOSED WORK

We were on the same course when we met. We worked together on projects, shared friends who were into production, and gradually got to know each other beyond whatever we were doing in class.

One of those mutual connections was Obey X100, who would later produce “Purple Clouds” for my envy don’t care project (2024) and “Obey’s Interlude” for Summer, Pain & Toxins (2022). Music was part of the environment we shared, but it wasn’t the only thing connecting us.

Mendii also introduced me to plenty of films, anime and games. I got recommendations from him, including The Big Bang Theory, and found myself exploring things I might not have discovered otherwise... Pause.

As a person, he’s always struck me as pretty chill. Well-dressed, keeps to himself, and could probably pull a few girls if he really wanted to as per swaggu dripping, but that’s not exactly his priority. He’s a good guy. Never struck me as someone desperate to be the loudest person in the room.

Back then, I was making beats, while Mendii was beginning to write and finding people who could record him. He had the confidence to approach people and get things moving. We were both figuring out our own creative paths, although neither of us could have known where those paths would eventually lead.

THEN HE DROPPED SOCIETAL BLUES

Societal Blues remains one of those songs I still revisit on Audiomack whenever I get the time. I remember being genuinely impressed by how Mendii approached the beat. It was a hip-hop instrumental he’d found on YouTube, produced by Cxdy, but the way he flowed over it made it sound like he’d built the whole thing around himself.

The song opens with a sample from a retro film:

"Well, that’s the second time man’s walked out of paradise.” “No, no, this time, we walked out on our own…” “Maybe we were meant to fight our way through, struggle, claw our way up, scratch…""

Societal Blues - Mendii (0:00 - 0:23)

Then the beat drops. Woooooooo!

I still appreciate that entrance. The dialogue sets up a question about paradise, choice and struggle before Mendii gets into the song itself. And the chorus makes its position clear:

"Societal blues, everybody bound to the same old rules, tryinna be different is a strong taboo, ‘I want to be president’ that’s bad news, yeah."

Mendii (Societal Blues)

He goes on to challenge the permanence of those social expectations and the desire to become king while expecting everyone else to kiss your shoes.

What stuck with me wasn’t just the delivery. It was the perspective. Mendii was questioning a culture in which people aspire to power, status and recognition without necessarily questioning the systems that make those things desirable in the first place.

That line about trying to be different being a strong taboo stayed with me. I connected with the song enough to keep returning to it, and it became part of what encouraged me to take my own music more seriously. I eventually got a microphone and started putting more into developing my craft.

That’s what music can do. Sometimes a song doesn’t simply entertain you; it makes you want to go and do something yourself.

For me, Societal Blues was one of those songs.

THEN LIFE HAPPENED

COVID came, and things gradually changed. The more we focused on real-world responsibilities, the more distance grew between us. We still caught up occasionally, but not nearly as often as before.

Mendii moved from Nigeria to the UK. Between school, settling into a new environment and heartbreak, he had plenty going on outside music. We spoke about some of it, including the heartbreak. I gave him a bit of grief about chopping breakfast, because apparently even your friends aren’t safe when Burna Boy’s Last Last has entered the conversation.

But beneath the jokes, I understood that music wasn’t necessarily where his head was at the time.

By the time I moved to the UK in 2023, Mendii had moved to Canada to continue his education. Once again, life had taken us in different directions.

He eventually returned to releasing music with “Miss You” and “X&O” (mixed and mastered by yours truly), alongside a couple of features with colleagues. Then came another period of silence. There was pressure to release music again, but finding your way back to something isn’t always as straightforward as deciding to do it.

It’s easy to look at an artist’s catalogue and see the gaps between releases as empty space. From the outside, we often measure progress through output: the songs, the projects, the numbers and the consistency.

But people have lives outside their discographies. Education, relationships, moving countries and figuring yourself out don’t pause simply because you have music to release.

Mendii’s journey hasn’t been a straight line. I don’t think it needs to be.

R3ASONS, AND THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING HERE

In 2025, I helped with some of the creative direction for R3ASONS, a three-track release. Its cover art featured a photograph of a car crash Mendii had survived.

I’m genuinely grateful he survived it.

There’s not much else I need to say about that. Sometimes, knowing someone personally makes certain things impossible to view as just another piece of an artist’s rollout. You know there’s a person behind the music, with a life that matters beyond whatever they release next.

Working on R3ASONS was another opportunity to contribute to something he’d put together. It was also a reminder that, despite the distance and the periods when we weren’t catching up much, there were still ways for our creative paths to cross.

I’ve always been happy to throw a producer recommendation his way or help where I can. We’re friends first. The music is one of the things that connects us, not the only reason the connection exists.

AND NOW, DARK

Mendii has returned with DARK, released just a couple of days before Halloween.

The six-track EP finds him exploring questions about identity, ambition, purpose, exhaustion and the people who remain important to us. It’s a project full of questions, and not every one of them comes with a neat answer.

Listening to it, I find myself thinking about the continuity between the artist who made Societal Blues and the one releasing music now. The circumstances have changed. We’ve both grown up, taken different routes and had to make room for things outside music. But that earlier song still sounds like an important piece of the picture.

I’ve known Mendii since 2017. I’ve seen the beginnings, the pauses, the changes in direction and the return. I know what his music has meant to me, even when we haven’t been in constant contact.

And I don’t need to pretend every creative decision he makes works for me to appreciate what he’s doing. I’m simply glad he’s still here, still making music, and still giving people something to listen to and think about.

The guy has always been that guy.

Now, with DARK, we get to hear where he’s taking it next.

"Mendii is a wandering philosopher consistently riddled with questions and finds meaning in the most mundane and simplest of things. Mendii is the transformation of an identity meant to be used as ridicule. [He is] even an enigma to himself sometimes as he lets his mind wander"

Mendii (in his own words)