One of the great things about high school is that everyone is able to figure out who they are, what their interests are, and what they believe in. Mills, being relatively diverse, has students with many different interests, from robotics to advocating for social justice. One of those interests includes music. Recently, senior Misael Gomez has started writing and releasing rap music on streaming platforms such as Spotify, Apple Music, and SoundCloud.

Gomez has always enjoyed music of all genres and even considered making music before, so he did just that. The pandemic has given many people lots of freetime, and Gomez used this time to pursue his passion for music starting in June of 2020. He explains that he only told his close friends about his first few projects because he was not ready for the criticism. To him, music is more than a pastime hobby to do when bored. Even though he did not allow many people to listen to his music and he was not fully satisfied with what he was putting out, he still continued to release music because he wanted to see how much he could grow as an artist over time. 

Starting in late September, he began releasing multiple singles, the first one being “Hated on It” featuring another rapper named Coy!. He wanted to try something a little different with this song than he had previously; he explains he “almost tried yelling into the microphone when recording,” and it ended up being one of his projects at the time. The song is directed towards the people who never believed in him and told him to simply stick with the traditional route of school rather than try to pursue music on the side. Gomez, in the song, explains that he is going to live his life the way he wants without worrying about people’s opinions and that he knows what is best for him. When showing the songs to others, he received a lot of positive feedback, prompting him to take music more seriously. He even recorded his first music video with this song. In late November, he released another song called “To the Test” with producer Lethal Needle. Rather than being about one specific topic, he took pieces of lyrics he had already written and put them together, and in some parts, he freestyled. He explained that it was written and recorded in less than thirty minutes. Rapper, singer, and songwriter KYLE discovered this song and showed it to one of his videographers, Miles, who reacted to it on a livestream on streaming platform Twitch, giving Gomez a more public platform. Although it was a big accomplishment to be noticed by a famous rapper, he did not see this as a turning point—instead, saw it as a good learning opportunity by taking the advice Miles gave to him. 

He soon began to realize that people liked his music, so he became more confident with his music and stopped caring about other people’s opinions. Eventually, Gomez made his music more publicly known by using his personal Instagram account to promote it. He enjoys picking beats, writing lyrics, and overall simply growing as an artist. His newest project is called Guidelines, which was released on January 29th and is available on SoundCloud. The album is fourteen songs and less than thirty minutes long. He says, “It is a very personal project and I am not afraid to be myself on it. I want everyone to give it a chance, because there is something on the album for everyone.”

He is not exactly sure what the future holds for him and music, but he knows that if there is an opportunity for him to make music his career, he will take it. When asked about tips for any other aspiring artists, he explained that it’s still very early to be giving any advice, but if he could say one thing, it would be, “If you really want to try something, no matter what it is, never give up even if you’ve tried and failed 100 times. You never know if that 101th try is the one.”

IG: keepitmisa

YouTube: https://youtu.be/MK5OA2axJNE

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/649DPxjKHE42kp8tQpbnEX?si=bLVCwNt1R9KojYj3HPR4kQ

Apple Music: https://music.apple.com/us/artist/misa/1523341504

SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/themisa/lines-ties-prod-lethal-needle