Mastamind

For nearly ten years Mastamind operated solely within Detroit’s acid-rap outfit Natas, until his first solo long-player arrived in 2000 and demonstrated that he was far more than Esham’s trusted lieutenant. Roughly a decade beforehand, while both were students at Osborne High School in Detroit, the future Mastamind—born Gary Reed—handed a three-song demo to classmate Esham, who had already issued the full-length Boomin’ Words From Hell plus several EPs and enjoyed considerable local fame among teenagers. Impressed, Esham recruited Mastamind and another friend, TNT, to form a trio; they adopted the name Natas to reflect their collective outlook and issued their debut album, Life After Death, on Esham’s Reel Life Productions imprint in 1992. Additional Natas projects followed in the ensuing years. Mastamind’s own initial solo outing, the five-track EP Lickkuidrano, surfaced in 1995, yet his first proper album, Themindzi, did not appear until 2000. That release earned underground acclaim when readers of Murder Dog magazine named Mastamind the year’s “most slept on” rapper and lauded the record. He capitalized on the momentum by mounting his first national tour in 2001, thereby cultivating a wider audience.