It’s 5:30 p.m. and there’s a quiet hush inside Detroit’s Vinyl Society bar and lounge. The late-evening patrons haven’t trickled in yet and the emcee known as Mersiless Amir is the only customer inside. As he finishes a glass of Grand Marnier, the waitress asks him if he wants another but he politely declines. Amir’s demeanor is leaning on the reticent side and his all-black outfit is blending in with the hued colored walls of the bar.
Mersiless Amir (also spelled Merciless Ameer) is one of Detroit’s most important emcees. He’s a veteran of Detroit’s first wave of hip-hop who’s leery of being called a “veteran” because he still has skin in the game. He grew up on Detroit’s west side, graduated from Southfield Lathrup in the 1980s, and remembers a time when hip-hop was still trying to find its place.
“I was a DJ. I did school parties, played football, and ran track,” he says. “It was when they first started playing Eric B. & Rakim, that gave us an identity.”
Amir took pen to pad early and by the time he was out of high school he befriended fellow hip-hop artists Kaos & Mystro and shared a friendly rivalry with emcee Motsi Ski of Detroit’s Most Wanted. “Motsi was my mans before our records came out,” Amir says. “We met when we were both working on our records.”
This was the same era that birthed Awesome Dré & the Hardcore Committee, Champtown, Nikki D, and A.W.O.L. Amir found early success early with his single, “A Day Without a Rhyme,” but the story behind it is complicated.
“Mystro called me one day and was scratching on the record,” he says. “I asked him how did he get it because it wasn’t out. He was like, ‘I just bought the record from Buy-Rite.’”
“A Day Without a Rhyme” was one of a plethora of songs Amir was recording for an album that never came out. It was the perfect combo of Amir’s razor-sharp rhyme style, a mesmerizing hook, and sampled Rakim ad libs. The song was Detroit’s first viral hip-hop record and received airplay across Detroit’s radio waves during a time when Detroit hip-hop artists were starting to resent the lack of support from radio.
Despite the notoriety, Amir wasn’t able to financially capitalize off the song due to an ongoing dispute with his business partner. “He and I were trying to figure out our contract and agreement. We couldn’t really figure it out, you know? We discussed one thing but then people got in his ear,” Amir says.
The song also cemented his place in Detroit hip-hop where future stars like Big Proof called him the “God of Detroit Rap” and others compared him to Rakim. The contractual arrangement between Amir and his business partner never got resolved and Amir moved on to managers Greedy Greg and Doc Brown. From there he flew to California where he recorded a demo tape with DJ Quick affiliate T.K.O. and then moved to New York shortly after. Amir’s goals were clear: He wanted to make music and he wanted to find the right business partnership that would help his music reach broader spectrums.
“Trying to get a deal was different back then. You could just walk into an office, to the desk and say, ‘Let me see an A&R guy,’” he says with a laugh.
Amir garnered a lot of interest. He met with Def Jam, RCA, EMI, Warner, A&M, and Interscope (when Interscope was in its beginning stages). Ultimately Ameer chose to sign with Polygram records in 1996.
“When I signed with Polygram, they were like the biggest label in the world. They got absorbed by MCA like five years later,” he says.
Amir got to work on his upcoming album but the producer was juggling projects from other acts for the label. He never felt like his album was a priority. “People got a lot of money when we signed that deal,” Amir says. “The producer who got the deal for us, the manager, they didn’t really care if it didn’t come out.”
As time went by and deadlines kept being missed the label decided to shelve the album (even though it did get completed).
“I think it was because it just took too long to finish the album. They moved on. The energy just went somewhere else,” he adds.
Once out of his contract with Polygram, Amir relocated to California. By now he had become an exceptional producer and efficient drum programmer. His weapon of choice was a MPC2000 customized by legendary electronics engineer Bruce Forat. He found work for all-star songwriter Diane Warren doing the drum programming for hit songs including “Breathe Again" (Toni Braxton, 1993) and “I Don’t Want to Miss a Thing” (Aerosmith, 1998). He also worked with famed music director Rickey Minor and contributed to various TV productions. Amir compares the work to being a session drummer for Motown.
“I did music for the Comedy Central awards, NAACP awards. I was good with the right people and they were always connecting me with other people,” he says.
On the hip-hop side Amir began releasing a series of albums under the moniker “Eddy Rebel.” “I was inspired by Wu-Tang,” he says through a laugh. “You know how they have different aliases and names.”
The Eddy Rebel albums were full of Amir’s patten swift lyrical flow over laid-back west coast beats. Songs like “Ride a Wave” and “Time 2 Roll” are still Los Angeles mainstays. In an awkward twist of fate, Eddy Rebel even blew up in Japan.
“The distributor I worked with bootlegged my shit. They bootlegged my shit in Japan and Oakland,” Amir says. The bootleged CDs had a mixtape-like effect as Amir was able to establish a strong fanbase in other markets. “I had Japanese DJs reaching out to me. I had a couple cases of CDs and they bought all of them.”
Seven years in California had been good to Amir. His income was solid, he continued with his Eddy Rebel releases, and had gotten married. He still had not quite achieved the national breakout success his talent deserved but was still working toward it. In 2005, Amir made another pivot as he decided it was time to move back to Detroit for family reasons.
It didn’t take long for Amir to get back into the studio. In 2007 he released Legends Ball. The project featured heavyweights Big Herk, Stretch Money, and Proof, but failed to make a commercial impact. “We spent like $20,000 dollars recording it then we didn’t have any money left to market and promote it,” he says with a shrug.
After another hiatus, he dropped a triple album True Legend with 30 tracks in total in 2022. The album powered by the nostalgic single “So Far Away” that featured L.A. native Young Trey.
“I think I just had a lot to get off my chest. I finished a song and then another and I’m like, ‘I like all of these,’” he says.
On August 20, Amir dropped Legendhood featuring contributions from former Death Row bassist Tony Green. “It’s dope, it’s something that I want to be another timeless vibe,” he says. “It’s aggressive, lyrical, message-oriented. It’s major, it’s not what you would expect.”
Although Amir has shown he’s only gotten better with time, his hip-hop legacy will forever be tied to “A Day Without a Rhyme.” In 2022 Eminem mentioned Amir’s name along with 100 others to show gratitude to the emcees that have influenced him. Prior to that, Amir says that “A Day Without a Rhyme” is the only known song Eminem has covered.
“[He’s] a fan, it’s an honor,” Amir says. “The first time we met was backstage at the first BET Awards in Vegas. He came offstage after performing with Dr. Dre, and I said, ‘Eminem, I’m your homeboy Mersiless Amir,’ his jaw dropped like he saw a ghost and he started singing, ‘A Day Without a Rhyme.’”
Amir still has lofty goals but acknowledges that he’s had a full life. He’s worked with and broke bread with some of the biggest names in hip-hop and entertainment. While he finds technology has made the process of making music easier, fighting through the noise of the internet is taxing. He plans on to keep finding new and innovative ways to make music
“I’m just taking it a day at a time,” he says. “I always have creativity on my mind. I’m always thinking about the next song. You stay evolving, you evolve with the times. I wanted to assert that I’m from the D, and I do this kind of music.”
