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Meet Cole Mize

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Today we’d like to introduce you to Cole Mize.

Cole, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
I was raised on the countryside of a very small, slow paced and quite town in Georgia. There was a cow pasture across the road from the front of my house, and there was a horse farm, and a pond I grew up fishing at behind my house.

I grew up in a very “mixed” environment.

For starters, my Mother is half Native American and White and my Dad is mainly mixed with German & Italian. My mom always told me to be proud of my mixed blood, so I never looked at myself as just one “thing”, or only belonging to one group of people. So growing up, I had quite the variety of friends I would hang out with.

From kindergarten to half of 3rd grade me and my brother whose two years older than me, attended a predominately white elementary school that was walking distance from our house. My brother had what you may call a “behavior problem”, and was being mistreated by some of his school teachers, so my mom decided to move us to the predominately black elementary school on the other side of town.

I didn’t know it at the time, but this move was going to change my life! This is when and where my musical roots were planted.

After only being there for a few days, during the end of class, one of my new friends pulled out this beautiful, shiny gold instrument and began playing it. I remember being amazed by how it looked and sounded!

I quickly inquired about his instrument and after he told me the name of it I was a bit confused. I said “It’s called a SEX-ophone?!?” He laughed, and responded back, “No, it’s called a SAX-ophone S.A.X not S.E.X” which I followed up with a long and sustained “oooooooh!”

I then said, “Man, that thing must have cost a million dollars! That’s a lot of GOLD!” He laughed once again and informed me that it wasn’t made from gold but from brass, which I appropriately responded back with yet another long and sustained “oooooooh!”

The following day he handed me a sheet of paper that had the name of the store he got his Saxophone from, along with its brand name, serial number and everything! As an adult, I find it interesting that he took the initiative to do that for me.

Shortly after that, my Mom bought me my very own saxophone and I joined my schools competition band and ended up sitting right next to my friend during our band practices.

We practiced as a band, on average for about 2 hours per day and 1 hour by ourselves once we got home. Our band teacher was a black man who led us with the same passion and energy as you see Denzel Washington have in a lot of his movies. He pushed us really hard and demanded excellence from us! I remember times when we would mess up on parts we were supposed to know and he would get so pissed he would throw his conductor baton across the room while also hurling cuss words at us!

He taught us that success was achieved after enduring 1,000’s of failed attempts. He pushed us really hard, and because of that it brought the best out of us and we went on to win several statewide competitions. I ended up staying in band for a total of 6 years and retired as I entered into high school because I thought I was too cool to be carrying around my saxophone case.

I didn’t know it at the time but the discipline I learned from my band teacher would spill over into many other areas in my life which has given me the edge needed to get good at many things!

Two years later after joining the band, I picked up rapping for the first time in the 5th grade. It was 1995 and there was this huge hit out at the time called “Gangsta’s Paradise” by Coolio which I fell in love with! And I committed myself to learning the entire song! I remember sitting outside on the driveway underneath our basketball goal for hours on the daily listening to this song on repeat. This was before Rap Genius or Google so if I wanted the lyrics I had to write them down myself!

After I had nailed down all the lyrics, I practiced rapping the song for 2-3 hours each day just like I had learned to do in band class. And within a week or so I had memorized the entire song and could rap it from beginning to end. I remember how good it felt to be able rap my favorite song! And I couldn’t wait for it to come on while I was hanging out with my friends so I could show off just a little.

It was at this time that I developed a deep appreciation for rapping. I didn’t realize how difficult it was to do because Coolio made it sound so easy. But then I remembered how hard me and my band worked to achieve the same level of excellence and that’s when I realized that if I wanted to get good at rapping I just needed to apply the same level of discipline I had learned in my schools competition band.

This same year I also tried for the first time to come up with my very own rap lyrics due to a tragic event that occurred. One of my friends who sat next to me in class quit showing up for school. After she was absent for a few consecutive days me and my other classmates began asking our teacher where she was at and that’s when we had discovered that she had been killed in a house fire.

As a kid you don’t know how to process that sort of thing. From a kids perspective you think that you and all of your friends are invincible and are going to live forever! I remember being so shocked and confused. For weeks it was like I was walking around in a daze. And it was during this time that I tried to come up with my first lyrics as a way to try and cope with the loss of my friend.

The following year during my first year of middle school I wrote my first entire rap song. At the time rap groups were very common so I thought if I was going to be legit I needed a rap group as well. So I taught one of the verses to a friend of mine and we ended up performing it at a talent show and on several other occasions as well.

So technically I’ve been teaching people how to rap since I began rapping. Currently, as of 2019 I’ve been rapping for a total of 24 years. Here are a few more bullet points of things I’ve done during that time.

– In high-school (1999-2003) I began recording, mixing and producing for myself as well as other local rappers and rap groups. I produced 3 Demos of my own and distributed 100’s of copies throughout my high-school.

– During my senior year, I was asked to join one of the rap groups I was recording.

– We went on to record several hundred songs within a three years span.

– From (2004-2005)we built up enough buzz which landed us a record deal with an independent label called “Future Gold Records” which was run by James Brown’s road manager, Walter Foster who was responsible for helping Kool & The Gang break through the music industry.

– I ended up leaving the group due to feeling betrayed after I realized some of the members were stealing things from my parent’s house.

– I decided to go solo and saved up my money for an entire year to record my final demo CD at the legendary Patchwerk Studios in Atlanta, GA in 2006. This studio has recorded and mixed for most of all the major rappers in the industry and it was a dream coming true for me to work there!

– I began to build my own buzz and started making money off my CD’s and was even paid to perform a few times.

– During this time I felt strongly that I needed to take a step back and learn the music business side of things as I no longer desired to be signed to a label. I began to think more long term about my future and stopped hanging out and partying. Overall I felt I was a little ahead of myself and felt a strong urge to take a step back and gain more wisdom and knowledge.

– In 2007 at the age of 21 I married my best friend of three years, Monica whom I’m still happily married to till this day! We recently celebrated our 12 year anniversary!

– From (2007-2013), I worked my way up the “corporate ladder” from part-time to a management position for one of the top grocery manufacturing companies in the U.S.

– In 2013 I decided to leave my comfy corporate salary to pursue a career in the music industry. After taking my five-year sabbatical as a rapper I wanted to see if I still had the “it factor”. So I entered a rap competition and won 1st place among 60 other rappers. I was awarded a one week all-expenses-paid trip to California where I got to perform alongside 106&Park Freestyle Champion and former Ruff Ryder, MC JIN.

– In 2014, I noticed an increase of people reaching out to me for advice on how to improve their rap skills. So in my efforts to eliminate myself from having to repeat myself over and over again I started making video tutorials on YouTube and writing blogs on my website.

– From (2014-2019), I have been focusing on helping develop up and coming rappers through my free content as well as my 1 on 1 Coaching Service. This has led to me being a lead expert in the field of teaching people how to rap with a monthly viewership averaging over 150,000 per month.

We’re always bombarded by how great it is to pursue your passion, etc – but we’ve spoken with enough people to know that it’s not always easy. Overall, would you say things have been easy for you?
Hell naw!

For a while, my money was tight as spandex!

I remember one year, I didn’t have any AC for the entire year! And you know how hot it gets in Georgia!

I remember that year, picture frames had fallen off the wall several times because of the glue melting due to the heat.

I soaked rags with cold water and wrapped them around my neck and wrists.

Apart from the financial struggle, the biggest struggle has been staying focused.

As you build an audience, the demand for you continues to grow. But your time becomes more and more scarce. On top of that nowadays there are tons of things fighting for your attention every single day! Between social media, podcasts, emails, news, new releases of: technology, movies, music, etc… there is SO MUCH TO KEEP YOU DISTRACTED FROM WHAT YOU’RE TRYING TO ACHIEVE!!

This has been a real struggle for me. So in my efforts to be as productive as possible, I’ve learned to tune the world out a bit. I’m on what you call a low information diet. My phone is on airplane mode a lot, I’m barely on social media, I only check e-mail once or twice a day, and my level of anxiety and overwhelm has dropped significantly! This allows my mindset to be much more balanced and my overall quality of life to be so much better.

There have been many struggles on my journey. But suffering builds character, endurance and strength. Without conflict there will never be change. If you wish to be further along than you are, you must become more disciplined. With that being said, I still am and will always be… a work in progress.

We’d love to hear more about your business.
My company Cole Mize Studios specializes in training rappers from the ground up regardless of your current skill level or lack of prior musical experience.

I’m most known for my passion for teaching and rapping. I genuinely care about people, and that really comes through in my videos, articles and coaching. Many have said that my free content is better than the rap courses they already paid for! And if I had a dollar for every time someone said they were going to give me a shout out when they make it one day! 😎

What I do is actually quite rare. There aren’t many people who are trying to teach others how to rap. But what sets me apart from others is I have been building my students from the ground up for the past four years so I have a lot of experience on the best methods of teaching. I’ve learned that just because you’re good at something doesn’t mean you’re good at teaching it. Those are two completely different skill sets.

What were you like growing up?
I was very shy growing up. But if you could get me talking you couldn’t get me to stop! My parents used to call me ‘Radio’ because of that! lol!

I’ve always been very curious about how things work. I’ve also always been very giving, sometimes to a fault.

Apart from music I was heavy into playing sports, primarily baseball. In middle school, I knew I was either going to be a professional baseball player or a professional rapper. I was also heavy into doing prank phone calls and voice impersonations.

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Image Credit:
Adrian Debarros, Marc Griffin, Don Russell

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