Andy Mineo
Biography
Whether he’s on stage bringing an audience to its feet with his riveting performance or off stage fielding interview
questions with a potent combination of intellect and wit, it’s obvious Andy Mineo is a born communicator and hip
hop music is his instrument for reaching the masses.
“It is absolutely undeniable that hip hop is becoming the universal language,” Mineo says expressing an unbridled
enthusiasm for his artistic vehicle. “It’s so influential because you are able to say so much in a short period of time.
The essence of hip hop is the boldness of it so you’re able to be exactly who you are. You are able to say exactly
what you want. You represent exactly what is deepest and dearest to you and people respond to that. They
respond to that realness.”
That musical authenticity, heart for people and keen insight into the human condition coalesce on Mineo’s Reach
Records debut Heroes for Sale. “We make heroes out of a lot of things,” he says. “We make heroes out of people.
We believe ourselves to be greater than we really are. We make ourselves look like heroes to other people. What I
really wanted to do is show the brokenness of the heroes that we create and the heroes that we try to be in order
to show that there is ultimately only one great hero.”
To underscore that message, Mineo was willing to strip back the layers of his own life and be honest with his
audience. “I get really transparent on these songs,” he confesses. “I want to let people see into my brokenness in
hopes that other people would identify with that and ultimately know that they don’t have to be great. Their God
is. Also I just wanted to have fun. I wanted to show off my love for hip hop. I wanted to try some things. You’ll see
a bunch of my big personality come out. I let people see who I am.”
A native of Syracuse, New York, Mineo grew up in a single parent home and was a troubled kid who was kicked out
of public school because of his anger issues and aggressive tendencies. Sports and music became positive outlets
for Andy’s excessive energy. “I was more involved in basketball and football until one of my friends and I just
started rapping as a joke,” he remembers. “We used to buy singles because we couldn’t afford anything else.
When you’re 10 years old and you’ve got two or three dollars, you buy the CD single instead of the whole album.
The CD single would have instrumentals, so we would just write our own raps to the instrumental on the CD. That’s
kind of where my love for it began. My buddy got a program for the computer and we were recording in my living
room. I put together my first rap and I fell in love with it the moment I heard myself on the beat. I said, ‘Man, I
want to do this forever!”
Mineo became a hard-working young entrepreneur and not only recorded his own raps, but started a studio in his
house where he recorded other young hopefuls. He became a local hero and at 17 had money, success and
everything most young guys are looking to achieve. “When I got to about 15 or 16, I got all the equipment I needed
to not only record myself, but have my friends come over and I’d record them,” he says. “Other people got wind of
that and said, ‘Hey I’ll come over and I’ll pay to let me record,’ so I started doing that. The business kept on
evolving. I started making more money and bought more stuff, moved it into my basement and built a full studio
with one of my friends, who was a carpenter. We created a little ghetto basement studio. That’s how I made my
money all throughout high school.”
Yet even with Mineo’s worldly success, there was still an emptiness and restlessness in his heart. He found what he
had been looking for when his sister Mary went to work at a church camp one summer and took Andy with her. “I
was surrounded by loving people,” he recalls. “There were a couple of guys that invested in me that summer,
shared the gospel with me, showed me what it is to follow Jesus, and that’s when I had my first real encounter
with Jesus.”
When he returned home, it was hard to grow in his faith. “All throughout high school it was really difficult to follow
Jesus without having any community,” Mineo says. “I didn’t have any home church. I didn’t have any men to
disciple me. Nothing. When I went to college is when I started to get that. In college, I got away from the situation
I was in. God put me there and he put me around a bunch of people that loved God, people that looked like me
and talked like me. They were into hip hop like I was and it was really a blessing to meet some of these guys.”
Mineo met producer Alex Medina (Lecrae, Trip Lee) who encouraged the young artist to check out T.R.U.C.E. “It
was a group of young people that would gather on Saturdays to work on performing arts for the purpose of
evangelism,” he says. “I got invited to come check them out at a rehearsal and there was a whole bunch of men
there, people my age, and they all loved God. They were an encouragement for me to start walking with God
again. They showed me that I could use my gifts for him. I didn’t have to live the way I was living. I didn’t have to
make the music the way I was making it. I could actually use everything that I have for Jesus. I got connected with
people that showed me that I could do more with my life and my music.”
Mineo traveled with T.R.U.C.E. and began making a name for himself with such projects as Sin is Wack Vol. 1. Soon
others were enlisting Mineo to add his considerable skills to their projects. He’s been featured on
Tedashii’s Blacklight, Ambassador’s Stop the Funeral, Flame’s Captured and Lecrae’s “Background.”
“That was the first song we collaborated on and since then we started to build a relationship,” Mineo says of
working with Lecrae. “He came to New York and we shot a music video for it. We started to realize that we both
had a similar vision, a similar mission in what we wanted to do with our music. They were looking to sign a new
artist and I just seemed to be the right fit so I signed with Reach and it’s been a heck of a journey ever since.”
Heroes for Sale reverberates with bold messages and infectious beats, yet in an unusual move, the album opens
with the classic hymn “I Will Rise and Go to Jesus.” “I loved it so much that I decided to sample it and use it to open
up the album,” Mineo says. “So my album opens with a traditional hymn, which is very rare for a hip hop album,
but I think that opening hymn embodies everything that I wanted to say on this project: ‘I will rise and come to
Jesus, I’m broken, sick, wounded. All I need is grace.’ Those are the kinds of lyrics you’ll hear on that opening
hymn and I think it’s a perfect set-up for the rest of the album.”
The ethereal sounds of the hymn give way to “Superhuman.” “Anytime someone gets a microphone we exalt the
person speaking and often times we look at them as some kind of super human,” Mineo says. “We look at pastors
that way. We look at basketball players that way, anyone who has a platform. So on the first song of the album I
reveal a whole bunch of my struggles. I say, ‘Hey, listen, though I have a microphone and though I might be
exalted in some platforms, I’m not a super human. I’m just a fallen, broken person who needs grace.’ We put on
these masks and I really wanted to tear some of those down and create some vulnerability on this project. That’s a
lot of what that song is about, just saying I’m not that great, but my God is.”
“The Saints” is a party anthem that samples the old classic “When the Saints Go Marching In.” “I was backstage
with Trip Lee and KB and I was working on my album and I said, ‘Hey I want you guys to get on this song,’” Mineo
recalls of enlisting his two pals for the horn-laced production. “The song is all about what the world should look
like when the saints are there.”
The first single, “AYO,” is a potent number that showcases Mineo’s in-your-face skills. “It’s an anthem, a fun party
song. It has a big memorable chorus,” he says. “It’s really just a call to say, “AYO!” We’re enjoying our lives. We’re
enjoying our freedoms.’ We’re inviting people to come and see what this is all about. This life in Christ! It’s a feel
good song that a lot of people can enjoy and it’s an open invitation for people to check us out.
“The music video has a skateboard theme,” Mineo continues. “I like to skateboard, long board and all that stuff
around New York so we captured that aspect of my life and put it into the music video. I think that is going to
connect with a lot of people because that’s ordinary territory in the hip hop world. I’m just connecting with people
to let them know ‘Hey this is who I am. I’m a goofy white kid from New York who likes to skateboard, likes to have
fun and rap.’ The freedom that I have is something people are going to gravitate to.”
In recording Heroes for Sale, Mineo freely explored all of his musical influences and the result is a highly innovative
album that covers a lot of musical territory. “We took a lot of chances on this album production-wise,” he
says. “I’m pulling from different influences and merging them all together. I love classical music. I love hymns. I
love heavy metal stuff and I love hip hop, so you’ll hear a little bit of those influences all merged and different
things happening that you wouldn’t hear typically on a hip hop album. There’s a heavy metal song called ‘Where
the Wild Things Are.’ I’m screaming on the song and there’s heavy metal guitars and the song is saying ‘I want to
go where the wild things are.’ It’s an anthem to say, ‘Hey let’s step out of our four walls of the church and go
where the wild things are, where the people are who need you the most.’ I say a lot of things on this record that
will probably shock some people and stir some controversy, but I think it’s good to begin dialogue about where we
should be and who we are trying to reach, even if it comes at the cost of me maybe offending some people and
losing some fans.”
Mineo is not afraid to be bold and not afraid to reach out and make a difference. In 2012 he and a friend planted a
church in New York and now Christ Crucified Fellowship is a vibrant part of the community. “We’re steadily
growing and seeing more and more young people our age come and get baptized. It’s exciting,” he says. “I think
that’s why God made us this way. He hard wired us to love hip hop, to love people, to love culture, to love the
inner city, so why not take all the knowledge and things that he’s given us and go teach it to people that need it, in
places that aren’t being reached. That’s what made me want to plant the church. I have a passion for that and now
that the church is up and running I’m able to fall back and focus more on my music because now other people are
stepping into leadership.”
“I want to combine the message that I believe in deeply with the catchiness of these hip hop songs and choruses. I
really think it makes a powerful combination to speak to the hearts of people all over the world.”