There comes a time in every artist’s life when they have to look in the mirror and decide whether their art should be a hobby or a way of life. When it came time for Bronx native Mickey Factz to decide what his art meant to him, he chose music, abandoning a spot at NYU Law School to embrace hip-hop full time.
Born Mark Williams, Mickey Factz, was raised in the culture of hip hop, “My dad used to rap to me when I was a baby to keep me from crying” he says. As he grew older his influence came from his peers and the world around him, but it was hearing rappers Big Daddy Kane and LL Cool J for the first time that truly started his love for hip hop. “Kane was very confident,” Mickey recalls, “But he was also still as smooth, and so was LL Cool J.”
Factz honed his music and crafted his unique sound by releasing six full-length mixtapes, including his critically acclaimed release Heaven’s Fallout in 2007 and his most recent high concept mixtape, thedarkphoeni#Alpha. In addition to his solo work, Mickey Factz has worked with some of the hottest artists in the industry, including Drake, B.o.B., The Cool Kids, Travis McCoy, and Hip-Hop pioneers like Afrika Bambaataa.
Factz parlayed his growing body of work into a global following and an impressive amount of media attention including features in major music magazines Fader, Spin, and Complex. Mickey even appeared the cover of XXL Magazine as part of their 2009 Freshmen 10 issue.
In 2009 those high-profile appearances caught the attention of Honda Motor Company, and Factz was selected to be the face of their “Rhymes & Reasons” marketing campaign which was which was featured as part of Honda’s national initiative for their flagship car, the Accord. He also applied his marketing and internet knowledge to helping other artists forming the artist management/brand marketing company GFCnewyork.
2010 is poised to be a big year for Mickey Factz. His hard work and perseverance paid off when he signed a major record label deal with Battery Records, a subsidiary of Jive Records. Four years after dropping out of law school, Mickey’s mic apprenticeship has come full circle with his debut release The Achievement. His body of work stands as homage to the culture while awash in today’s spirit of innovation. He is The Achievement.
