Filipino-American singer, songwriter, dancer and record producer Ez Mil (Ezekiel Miller) will be coming home to the Philippines to perform at V1BE Manila 2024, dubbed as the grandest “hip-pop” experience of the year, happening on Dec. 3 at the SM Mall of Asia Arena.
Ez Mil will be a featured artist at Akon’s “The Superfan Tour” in Manila. He will be joining artists Gloc-9, Flow G, Lucas, Pablo, Dappest X ADL, Legit Misfitz, Chocolate Factory and DJ Kate Jagdon at the event.
Last year, he released the deluxe album “DU4LI7Y: REDUX,” which included the song “Realest” featuring multiple Grammy Award winner and rapper Eminem.
Ez Mil was born in the Philippines and was raised in Olongapo City. He moved to the US in his teens and is based in Las Vegas.
In 2021, his song “Panalo” became viral when he performed it on the Wish USA Bus. .The video of Ez Mil’s performance has garnered 84 million views on the Wish USA YouTube account, two million likes and more than 184,000 comments as of Oct. 26.
Ez Mil (Provided by L-Squared Productions)
Virgin Music Label and Artist Services signed up Ez Mil as an artist in June 2021 with Virgin Music president Jacqueline Saturn saying, “Ez Mil is a young, fierce and creative artist that can go the distance and is already making a huge impact. He is a unique and powerful voice and force in Hip hop.”
Last year, Ez Mil made headlines when it was announced that he signed up with three labels: Shady Records, Aftermath Entertainment and Interscope Records. With this, he is one of the few artists like 50 Cent who are signed directly to all three labels.
In an interview with Manila Bulletin, Ez Mil expressed excitement to perform at V1BE Manila together with Akon and the other featured artists.
“I'm very excited because they're just so immensely talented, all of them, and it's going to be a blast. I'm just excited,” he said.
Eminem
Shady Records was founded in 1999 by Eminem and his manager Paul Rosenberg following the release of the album “The Slim Shady LP.”
Eminem had an enormous impact on Ez Mil’s life and career, and being an artist under Shady Records, Aftermath Entertainment and Interscope Records was a dream come true.
Ez Mil revealed how the deal came to be.
“Long story short, they…it was actually Eminem M who found me through YouTube. And they just, I still can't believe it, you know, they just sent the email out and then we met them and the rest is history,” he said.
Ez Mil (center) with Eminem (left) and Dr. Dre (Photo from Eminem's Instagram account)
At the time, Eminem said, “We’ve never been out there signing a lot of artists, and one of the great things about how we built Shady is how selective we’ve been And it’s even rarer that Dre and I sign something together – but I heard Ez’s music and was like, ‘this is really special’ so I took it to Dre. We both agreed it would be a great fit and we wanted to work with him right on the spot.”
He shared the news on his Instagram account in July last year, which has garnered 2.2 million likes to date.
About Ez Mil’s talent, Dr. Dre said last year, “I’m really only interested in working on sh** that sounds different from anything else going on out there, and only then if I feel I can really bring something to it. Em played me Ez and I had that feeling…that thing that happens when we both know we’ve found something special. And that was it….let’s get to work.”
Music
Ez Mil also shared how he started his music career.
“With music in general, I started with metal music. I started making metal music first as a hobby but yet it was just a hobby. In terms of taking like the music industry or and making music as like a job too seriously, it wasn't later until when I got to the USA,” he said.
On his current playlist, Ez Mil said, “I would have to say it's still the same people: Reigning Supreme, Kendrick Lamar, ASAP Rocky and Eminem. And sometimes I mix it up. I listen to some jazz or some rock and metal.”
About what types of songs he listens to, he said, “I would have to say complex, yeah, very complex music and deep, deep, yeah. I like to pick out the songs that I would be like ‘I want to listen to that one more time’ and see what they did right there with like the composition or what they said. Something like that.
He was raised in the Philippines and moved to the US when he was about 16.
Ez Mil said growing up in the Philippines was “definitely bittersweet but it's still home.”
He said it was a challenge when he emigrated to the US.
“Definitely the transition. I still think I'm transitioning because it's hard to grasp the culture within the United States when it comes to just different things but yeah, it was difficult definitely when I first came here,” he said.
For those who are going to watch V1BE Manila, Ez Mil promised them that it will be fun.
“Just know that I'm super excited and, yeah, I'm just going to try to kick it and make sure that you know we have fun because if you know the performer has fun then everybody else watching is having fun as well,” said Ez Mil.
Tickets to V1BE Manila are available at SM Tickets.
V1BE Manila is presented by L-Squared Productions and Konvict Kulture.
