Mickey Factz returns with his most honest and inclusive body of work to date, The Achievement: circa ’82, a 10-track EP with production by Grammy award-winning producer Nottz. We recently sat with Mickey for a conversation about the project and his personal growth through the development process of the project.

Talk about the meaning of the project and how it came together

“I changed the name from Expressionisms to The Achievement: circa ’82. In music I was always saying I was born in ’85 because I wanted to be younger. I wanted to be 31 instead of 34, which I am now. I was like you know what I’m tired of living this lie and it’s time to tell my fans my story from ’82 to where we are now. “

This is one of your most inclusive projects and it seems like you could say that social media played a role in executive producing your album. Do you agree?

“Nottz would post his beats on his IG. I would be like I’ma take this beat and I’ma take than beat. I would look at the comments and people would say…“Yo I hear Fonte singing on this track,” or they would say, “This is a smooth-sounding track I could see Curren$y on this beat.” It’s one of those things where social media kinda executive produced the project. “

You have a lot of key features on “Marina.” How did that track come together?

“Nottz produced it obviously. I heard someone say they could hear Curren$y on the record. I was like, man let me reach out to Curren$y who I’ve known for 9 years and since I laid a verse down on his project, when it was time for my album I was like, yo you know you owe me one. Can you send me a verse for this? He sent me his verse, it was mad hot. So I was like, oh excellent. Now it was time for me to get Smoke DZA on it who I’ve known for 15 years. I sent him mine and Curren$y’s verse and he was like yeah let me add my verse to this. … Mack Wilds, I had to track Mack Wilds down; he was shooting so many things for television. So when he finally got to New York City I booked a session and me and him sat down for three hours to kinda come up with this chorus. It felt like a real good boat typa record.”

You immortalized your fans on your project, adding them to the final track “The Achievement.” How did this come together?

“I posted on Facebook for my fans to leave 10-second voicemails in my inbox to close out the album for them to tell me what they achieved and what their achievements are. To me putting their vocals on my project immortalized them and their hopes and dreams and what allows them to keep going from hence forth.”

Connect to his project below: