Artist on the Rise: Cortezzz
Based out of Union City, New Jersey, Mikey Cortez (professionally known as Cortezzz) is a rising singer-songwriter and producer whose soulful tracks are guaranteed to touch your heart. While he has a passion for creating R&B, Soul, and Hip-Hop records, Cortezzz has a very versatile collection of music, and also has a large range of abilities as an artist. While he produces a wide variety of genres, he also showcases his songwriting strength writing meaningful lyrics that spark emotion in his listeners. His inspiration lies within his love for the craft and the creative freedom that he uses to express himself as an artist and to tell his own stories.
Cortezzz’s love for music dates back to when he was just in middle school. While he did not participate in any musical ensembles, he fell in love with analyzing song lyrics and melodies. However, one of his teachers took notice of his inclination to sing and encouraged him to join the school’s GLEE Club. At the time, his world revolved around his love for sports, however at a young age he decided to be bold and take a leap into his new world of music. As the young artist told EAR, he learned a lot from that year about performing and putting on a show, “it also instilled a fire inside of me that burned with a new passion to learn more about the performing arts and what I would need to do and understand to make this dream a reality of mine.” From then on, he immersed himself in music by using his skills to write his own original content to share with others.
Cortezzz knows a fair share of production and is loyal to one main DAW and MPC: for production purposes, he uses Maschine by Native Instruments due to its proficiency in hardware/software integration as a controller. Despite popular belief, Maschine is not a digital audio workstation, despite its strength in sampling and recording MIDI, but lacks in recording and arranging capability. For recording purposes, he’s been using Logic Pro X since he first experienced music production. However, as indicated by his history of analyzing song lyrics, Cortezzz also as become a very skilled songwriter and considers this to be his strong suit. He claims that he has an ability to understand and connect words to emotions to create an encaptivating energy for his music.
When asked about who inspires him as an artist, the aspiring artist listed many classic names such as Michael Jackson, the Beatles, Whitney Houston. He also shared some of his favorite modern age artists such as Drake, Ed Sheeran, Jon Bellion and Justin Bieber. He admits that he admires their work and would love to collaborate with these people, but he also views himself as his own type of artist that works to create his own, independent sound. His dedication to being true to his personal tastes is reflected in the time and effort he puts into his work, and as he told EAR, he hopes to head in this direction with “a little more time in the studio”.
In regards to his current works, Cortezzz has a decent repertoire already up on multiple platforms that are ready to stream! He told EAR, most of his songs aim to tell his own story and use real life examples so that his listeners can relate to it. Out of the many pieces in his original music catalog, he pointed out a few records that he deemed his favorite. One notable release that he is quite proud of is his song titled “Anything.” The young artist confessed that he had written the song in an effort to win back the heart of his old love. He said, “although the song never worked in my favor for the relationship, it definitely resonated with many others who took an ear to the song.” The song is one of his most popular tracks, racking up 16,000 streams without any form of promotion. After realizing its success, he decided to create a music video for the track, which gained four thousand views on YouTube. If you listen to “Anything” you will see why the song gained the attention it did. Cortezzz effortlessly conveys the raw emotion of longing for love and his vocals have a sweet tone to it that draws listeners in. In addition, his production shows a great deal of skill and knowledge of R&B style music. While “Anything” didn’t capture the heart of his intended subject, we are certain that you will be enamored with his sweet falsetto and emotional lyrics. Another work that he mentioned to EAR was his newest release “Can You Hear Me?” which maintains the theme of heartbreak from “Anything”. However, rather than singing from the perspective of a heartbroken man trying to win back his love, the aspiring singer discusses his internal debate between communicating his concerns to his partner, or keeping the pain to himself in an effort to preserve the relationship. There are many components of the song that hold a deeper meaning both lyrically and production-wise. Cortezzz flawlessly conveys his emotions through his lyrics, as he is unafraid to be vulnerable and show his desperation to speak his mind. Once again, he proves his claim that he has the ability to connect emotions to words and evoke a response in his listeners.
When asked about the message he hopes to send through his music, the aspiring artist responded eloquently, “I would love to just spread a message of freedom and equality for every person in the world around me. and I would especially like to let those who feel alone sometimes to know that whatever you have going on in your life, it is always just another bump in the long and winding road. We are all so capable of greatness, and all we need is a little push to achieve anything we want to.” This speaks not only to his story of how he fell in love with music, but is conveyed in his music and the raw emotion that is evident in his vocals. If you would like to hear more from Cortezzz, we highly recommend you check out his artist profiles on Spotify, Apple Music, or any of your favorite streaming platforms. Also, be sure to stay tuned for his new releases that are on the way! As he had told EAR, there are many works coming in the next few weeks to lead up to the release of his first full length project, titled “Mile 1” which will be out at the end of the year.
As an aspiring artist, Cortezzz has many goals for the future that show his selflessness as a person. He hopes to reach a position where he has the ability to give back to his community and his fellow artists, while also helping to support his family. He also acknowledges these difficult times that we live in, and hopes to use music as a platform to spread knowledge and positivity to young people who are growing up through these struggles. When asked about the knowledge he would like to share, the insightful artist gave a wise message to aspiring artists and producers: “my best advice is to follow your heart and create what you enjoy and not always what other people want to hear. Remember that most people are attracted to things they have never heard before and YOU might be just what they're looking for.” Cortezzz proves to be a very sensitive and caring person both through his content and through his way of life, and he only hopes for the best for musicians like himself in the future.
As he acknowledged the importance of music as a whole, he also had some very insightful words to share. He admitted that he has used music as a method to persevere through hard times, thus he made it his goal to spread positivity through his music. As he told EAR, “Music is the source of many emotions and thoughts. It is extremely vital to the world to be able to have music with us especially in such tough situations we face in today's world.” Cortezzz believes that music has that universal effect and that this belief can apply to anyone, therefore music has a large social impact as it can reflect our general sentiments.
Cortezzz was very kind as to thank EAR in his closing remarks and acknowledge our patience, kindness, and professionalism during the process of creating this article. He wishes all the best to EAR, and the artists we have worked with and will work with in the future. We are very optimistic for Cortezzz and we wish him great success in his career in music.
The best way to stay up to date with Cortezzz is to follow him on his social media platforms! He is very true to himself on his profiles as he shows off not only his passion for music, but also other interests such as skateboarding and photography. He is not afraid to show off his moments with friends, and provide his audience with a full representation of who he is as a person. His social media profiles are also a great way to get to know him as Mikey Cortez, rather than under his stage name because you can get a glimpse of his regular life. As he told EAR, “I truly believe that being unapologetically authentic to yourself is the best way to show people what you're truly made of. And the ones that support me truly know that I am always one to reciprocate the energy.” We have provided a list of all of Cortezzz’s profiles below, so definitely be sure to follow him to stay in the loop of his musical journey and when he releases new content!
If you would like to listen to Cortezzz’s music, check out his artist profiles here!:
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