Boston rapper Maeko has been grappling with grief, but he’s using his music as a means to process his bereavement. His new EP Good Grief collects five songs about “loss, acceptance, and finding hope” that channel his personal challenges into larger reflections about mourning and coping. Pairing his poignant lyrics with instrumentals that blend clean guitar riffs with lively beats, Maeko has created a striking near-seamless DIY hip-hop record whose words stick just as intensely as the music backing them.
Good Grief comes from a deeply personal place for Maeko, stemming from a difficult 2019 for him. “Between my grandfather and father passing away, my band going our separate ways, and ending a long-term relationship,” Maeko says, “I was (and still am) grieving a lot.” His most recent loss was his father’s unexpected death in September – “that was what really inspired Good Grief.” Three weeks later in October, Maeko recorded the EP over a long weekend in California with his friend Dave Chapman. “I didn’t know at the time that it would be a project, but here we are!”
One of the ways Maeko explores grief on the EP is by delving into romantic breakups as their own form of loss on “Raspberry” and “Weep,” which “is a different type of tricky” for his writing process. “Any topic where you’re going deep is bound to make you feel vulnerable, but something about a ‘breakup song’ is just hard for me to pen. I feel like we don’t often consider the metaphorical deaths that we face. I thought it was important to explore the more nuanced losses we all face.”
EP closer “Weep” also features a spoken work outro where Maeko muses about how people aren’t often taught how to grieve in healthy ways. “Although I’m lucky enough to process a lot of hard emotions through music,” he says, “I didn’t necessarily grow up with my heart on my sleeve, especially when it came to grieving.” Explaining how his suggested method of practicing grieving regularly has helped him, he adds, “I think it’s important that we embrace all of the feelings that surround a difficult loss and not put a timeline on it. The idea of normalizing grieving has helped me stay more sane through it all.”
Standing in contrast to the songs about grief is “Brighton Sunset,” a laid-back “little breather” of an ode to the Allston-Brighton area. Maeko says that he wants the song to serve “as a break from all of the difficult topics/feelings I’m navigating on the project” and wanted to dedicate a track on the EP to the neighborhood because “Allston-Brighton holds a special place in my heart. Beyond living in Brighton for the past three years, I have so many good memories growing up seeing shows at Great Scott, Brighton Music Hall, Paradise, etc.”
Bundled with the EP exclusively on Bandcamp is a photo booklet made by Maeko of images tied to the record. Maeko says he’s particularly “really excited about the booklet” and thinks “Good Grief is best experienced if you listen to it while flipping through the booklet.” Speaking about what the photos he included mean to him, Maeko says, “It was important that I struck a balance between old photos with family & friends [and] different landscapes and scenes that would allow someone to get lost in their nostalgia. What people, places, things have you lost? What have you gained in the process? It’s all about finding the good in our grief. I hope this project serves as a trail map for that.”
Maeko’s new EP Good Grief is out now. Stream it via SoundCloud below, and check out his new website www.frommaekowith.love launching with the release of this EP.