Known to fans as Murkemz, the New York original who now calls Phoenix home has built a reputation for showing up, showing out, and staying consistent and relevant. But now, with a new track alongside Inspectah Deck of the Wu-Tang Clan, Murkemz is stepping into a whole new tier in the world of hip-hop.
“This ain’t the first time we spoke,” he says about Deck, whose real name is Jason Hunter. “Me and Deck have spoke on the phone. ... But first time like us chilling and locked in? Yeah — this is my first time rocking out with him for sure.”
The collaboration, on a track titled “Survive,” came together quickly and under pressure. “Deck had like one joint left, and he needed another verse,” Murkemz recalls. “He was like, ‘I need somebody.’”
Inspectah Deck reached out to PA. Dre, a Sacramento beatmaker and longtime Murkemz collaborator. The torch was passed to the Phoenix rapper, but the catch? He had to knock it out within a tight 24-hour window.
So Murk pulled up to The Wav Studios in Phoenix and knocked out his portion of the track in just two hours. “From getting up from my crib, coming up over here, you know what I mean, writing the shit too,” he says.
Phoenix rapper Murkemz.
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Murkemz accepted the invite and spent the evening with the crew. “The whole Wu was there,” he says. “We went to Monarch Theatre, got some bottles. It was a vibe — talking, smoking, just kicking it like regular people.”
The next day, Deck made a bold offer. Murk recalls it with excitement in his eyes. “He was like, ‘Let’s shoot a video to the joint that we got.’... He was like, ‘I got three Cali dates. If you could come out to Cali, I can get you in the show, you rock with us, chill, and we’ll find some time to get this done.”
So Murkemz and his cameraman headed west to California to link with Wu-Tang again. “I went to San Diego,” Murk continues. “My cameraman just documented everything: us backstage smoking, chopping it up, laughing.”
After the Wu concert, at the bus yard outside the Pechanga Arena in San Diego — with Murk’s cameraman lighting up the shoot with red and colorful lights — they filmed the music video.
And that wasn’t the end of it. “After that, we went to an afterparty,” Murk says. “Everybody was there: Rae(kwon), RZA, Ghostface Killah. We just vibed, bottles, music — it was a movie.”
Following the San Diego filming, Murk continued up the coast to Los Angeles to catch Wu-Tang’s performance at the Crypto Arena and gather even more content.
When asked for a teaser of the Inspectah Deck song “Survive,” he nods. “Only the strong survive, man,” he says. “That’s all I can say right there.”
During our interview at The Wav Studios in Phoenix, Murk emphasized the importance of networking and consistently following through with other artists, even if it’s a five-hour drive from the Valley.
“Pulling up to LA or wherever one time is cool, but the needle don’t move until people see you three, four, five times,” he adds. “First impressions are great, but it’s that third or fourth time they start calling in favors — giving you beats, verses, or real opportunities. It’s also where they see you: the studio, the BET media room, Bootleg Kev’s, some afterparty with industry heads. After a few run-ins like that, someone’s bound to say, ‘Yo bro, what’s good?’ You start building real rapport.”
And that consistency is part of the secret to the metro Phoenix “We Outside” rap star’s growing success. He’s constantly on the move, always documenting and sharing. When I interviewed Murk for a previous Phoenix New Times piece, he was filming a music video in Los Angeles, attending meetings, and prepping for a slew of BET Awards pre-parties. His movements — posted on Instagram Stories and TikTok — keep his fanbase glued to his channels, giving metro Phoenix fans and hip-hop heads nationwide a front-row seat to the hustle. The videos keep viewers locked in well beyond his lyrical skills and co-signs from legends like Wu-Tang and Ice-T.
Murk is also deeply immersed in work on his new album, The Ayatollah, which he says will convey this no-nonsense message throughout. “I got a whole album, ten joints,” he says. “All trench rap joints.”
Trench rap, Murk explains, has a throwback ’90s feel. “It’s just hard, gritty, grimy boom bap beats ... more reminiscent of like the underground boom bap hip-hop like Big L, Heltah Skeltah. I think I could bring that to the forefront in 2025 in my own way.”
The new album marks a shift from some of his recent music, like the high-energy “We Outside” single that put Murkemz on the map in the Valley. He recently remixed the track with California artists The Coyotes, Fedie Demarco, Dazy Lyn and Eastside K-Boy, appropriately titled the Cali Remix.
A New York remix of “We Outside” is also in the works, and it is scheduled for early to mid-August.
Until then, Murkemz continues to hold it down for metro Phoenix, expanding his national presence while staying grounded in the same hustle that got him here. “Yo, Ayatollah coming soon, man,” he says. “Stay tuned for the bars, man. It’s going crazy.”
And with the Inspectah Deck joint on the horizon, a camera roll full of behind-the-scenes heat, and more remixes on deck, Murkemz isn’t just pushing the Phoenix hip-hop culture forward — he’s living it, one trench bar at a time.
