MATTIE COZARTT DISCUSSES HERITAGE AND MUSIC, IN COLLABORATION WITH DR. MARTENS
Photography By Juanita Richards
Jean-Michel Basquiat is famed for being a revolutionist, his genre-defying artwork challenged everything that people thought they knew about art.
Although he passed the best part of 25 years ago, Basquiat’s boundary-breaking approach is referenced until today - his legacy extends beyond the boundary of art.
It comes as no surprise that Dr. Martens have teamed up with Artestar to deliver a collection that celebrates the boundary-breaking enigma that Basquiat was - and still is - through his art.
To celebrate this homage to Basquiat, we linked up with a modern day enigma closer to home - Mattie Cozartt, wearing the 1460 boot that features Basquiat’s ‘Untitled’(1982) - and spoke to him about life, lockdown and breaking boundaries that others try to impose on him.
“Mattie Cozartt, Mattie Cozartt is me, that’s my name” - he makes it undeniably clear that there is no pseudonym, no nickname as the music he makes represents himself in his purest form. Whilst he may be a relatively anonymous character on social media, the messages he puts out in his music are unmissable. As his vice, he’s focused on getting messages out - at whatever cost that may come to himself.
From the beginning of his concrete memories, Mattie remembers music playing an integral part in his life. With his dad being a DJ, music was an extra member of the Cozartt household. Music from back home - a mix of Nigeria, Zambia and South Africa - and 90s hip hop and RnB were the soundtrack of his childhood and helps shape his sound till this day: “Heritage definitely plays a part in my music. I try to combine elements of music that I’ve heard back home and what I’ve been growing up hearing”.
It’s perhaps why Mattie’s music feels distinctive yet digestible. Flowing over a plethora of beats, Mattie is able to inject all of these learnings into it all: whether hard-hitting or more chilled out, Cozartt will have no issue gliding on the beat gracefully.
Placing himself within different social groups has also helped elevate his music - he speaks about his love for skating as it not only is great mentally, but also allows him to tap into different genres - rock music as one of the more explicit examples.
But before the refined and unique Mattie we hear now, there was a child who was part of an orchestra, playing the violin and making beats on FL studio with his brothers. At 18 however, and now confident in his production skills, he realised he hadn’t really heard anybody who he thought could really do his beats justice. So like any musical extraordinaire, he jumped on the beats himself: “Through life, I feel like I have a story to tell. It took me some time to find my sound, but now it’s easier for me to tell my story through my music”.
It’s a rite of passage that has stood the test of time, he still produces most of his music; It’s just been a progression of fine tuning his sound in order to tell his story in the best way possible.
“If I’m not doing music, I don’t want to do anything”, an intentional statement from Mattie reflects his character. Although perhaps a bit more introverted, his faith in his music to do the talking is unmistakable. His transition from a model to a musician might’ve been a shock to some, and he revels in that, enjoying the journey of slowly revealing who he really is to those who indulge in his music.
So whilst ‘Stay Quiet’, Mattie Cozartt’s debut EP, is a solid project that explores themes such as life, keeping up with it all, growing up in rougher areas, indulging in certain lifestyles and more, it’s nothing but a taster for what’s to come.
‘BLOCK IS HOT’ couldn’t sound further from ‘PRADA ME’, for example, but this is just Mattie scratching the surface of what’s to come from him in the future. Patience is key, however, as he admits lockdown has been up and down: it’s the period in which he made the project, but it’s also slowed plans he had for the EP, as he intends to do more visual work, with only one video, for ‘GHOST TOWN FREESTYLE’, out thus far.
It’s been a helluva ride for Mattie so far, but we’re still only in first gear. Lock in, fasten your seatbelt and get ready to see Mattie Cozartt become a name on everybody’s lips as a modern day rockstar that not only excels within the realm of music, but fashion too. His dress sense, which he labels “a subtle flex” certainly doesn’t go amiss and just compliments the musical aficionado Mattie Cozartt is.