Da Beatminerz And John Brown The Rapper Share New Album ‘Waxing In Mecca’

After two years of rigorous training and honing his craft under the tutelage of legendary emcees at Pendulum Ink, Hip-Hop’s official lyricism academy, underground newcomer John Brown The Rapperapplied his expanded skillset in a stretch ofprolific studio sessions with pioneering Hip-Hop production duo Da Beatminerz(Mr. Walt & DJ Evil Dee). Those sessions resulted in Waxing In Mecca, the trio’s new full-length collaborative album, released today (6/5/2026) via Soulspazm/Fatbeats.

“I discovered a beattape by Da Beatminerz on IG. I picked a beat, recorded a song in my home studio, and sent it to Mr. Walt. Up until then, we had only been communicating through email. It felt like forever before I heard back from him. But eventually, Walt got around to listening to the joint, and called me up. He was like, ‘Yo, I want to actually produce this joint for real. Like let’s go into the studio and mix it and get it right.’ We didn’t go in expecting to do a whole album together. We actually were originally just talking about two songs, which turned into an EP, then eventually grew into a full album. We just locked in and have been making music together for several years now. This album is the best 18 songs we made in that first period of our partnership, though we recorded so much more. We just had that chemistry from day one.” – John Brown The Rapper

Waxing In Mecca is both statement and philosophy. The title nods to “waxing poetic” (the act of delivering dense, elevated lyricism), and Harlem (the cultural mecca in which the album was recorded), while reframing boom bap as a sound that continues to evolve and expand.

With guest verses from Mickey Factz, Your Old Droog, Rockness Monsta, Ras Kass, and more, the album pairs sharp lyricism with the raw, rugged sound of underground Hip-Hop that Da Beatminerz helped shape in the early ’90s.  Grounded in sharp songwriting and vision, the album is sonically cohesive yet thematically wide-ranging, spanning personal reflections, social commentary, and quantum physics.

Stream/purchase Waxing in Mecca here.

Today at 10AM EST, the music video for the album’s second single “Basement 2 Penthouse” will debut on YouTube below.

“I was handpicked to spit for Ransom the day he was a guest lecturer at Pendulum Ink Academy, and the first verse on this song was what I kicked acapella. Anytime you know you are going acapella you gotta have some highlight reel bars. And so the first bar I actually wrote for this song was ‘Putting 2X4s in the rafters like Kobe’. That set up the whole building theme, where I use construction terms as metaphors for how nice I am and scheme that throughout the song. Then I think the next line I wrote was ‘keep it proper to me brother (property brothers) when I’m mopping out the basement’. Now, subconsciously I have no doubt these bars came to me because at that time, we were living in the basement unit and it was constantly flooding, and I was constantly dealing with construction in the apartment for months. And so I was definitely impacted by my surroundings.  I was literally living in a basement apartment, dreaming about moving to the penthouse. So I started the second verse thinking about building and materials in a different way. I said ‘we are stardust, formed into carbon, born in a carton, conform with the foreman or starve’, which is really calling out the absurdity of how miraculous and tedious our existence is at the same time.” – John Brown The Rapper

Shot at Brown’s home, in the penthouse apartment of the same building in which he once lived in the basement unit, the single’s music video provides a glimpse into the emcee’s real life.

The video’s director, Victorious De Costa, is a East Flatbush filmmaker and Tribeca Film Fest alum known for his work in documentary storytelling. His projects include Digging for Weldon Irvine and the NAACP Image Award nominated HBO Max documentary Yusuf Hawkins: Storm Over Brooklyn. De Costa captures the spirit of John Brown The Rapper & Da Beatminerz building together in a space that blends nostalgia, culture, and creativity.

Watch “Basement 2 Penthouse” on YouTube here.

Check out the Waxing In Mecca lead single “Extraordinary” here.