Meet the Rap Super Producer Who Made Himself Disappear
He walked away from everything except himself.
If you somehow managed to produce records for Jay-Z, 50 Cent, Nas and Diddy, among others, would you one day just decide you’d had enough?
That’s what Dorsey “Megahertz” Wesley did when he mysteriously disappeared about ten years ago, leaving behind his friends, family and career as one of hip-hop’s most in-demand producers.
“One day I was driving on the turnpike and I was like, ‘I need a vacation,’” the Willingsboro, N.J. native recently told me via phone, while he was traveling in Los Angeles. “I looked up and saw this ad for Puerto Rico and I just left. I tried to book a ticket that night and it was too late to get the tickets. I left the next morning… I didn’t even pack a bag. I left with the Timbs I had on and some sweatpants.”
The producer, who famously crafted the beats for Diddy’s “Bad Boy for Life,” Nas’ “Got Ur Self a Gun,” Jay-Z and R. Kelly’s “Best of Both Worlds” as well as tracks on 50 Cent’s diamond-selling debut LP Get Rich or Die Trying, first lived in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico, then other tropical locations. Select people knew his whereabouts, but in industry circles his disappearance left people scratching their heads. Was Megahertz dead? Not quite.
“When I left, I cut my phone off and I didn’t communicate with anyone, even my family members,” he says. “I didn’t keep in touch with anyone… I didn’t have Internet. I lived without TV. Even now, the last couple of days is the first time I’ve seen TV in fifteen years. No TV, no clocks, no radio, none of that. Literally disconnected from the world. Not focusing on the business, I could actually focus on music.”
Wesley says that the impetus for the vacation was the passing of his father, whom he got to spend some time with before he died. It was only then, when he’d had a chance to reflect, that he realized his years in the music business had perhaps not been as fulfilling as he needed them to be. He wasn’t unhappy per se, but even with success, he still desired a change of scenery. That change lasted longer than he imagined.
While he initially left behind his musical equipment — as well as two ancillary businesses in Brooklyn; a coffee shop and a vintage store — he eventually returned to the United States and brought his gear to the islands. He was inspired by his surroundings.
“I started being in all these beautiful places and producing,” he says. “That was just the extra touch to my music. Being in a location and the challenge of producing something new in a new place.”
He wasn’t terribly active, though. Tupac Shakur’s vocals were flown down to him to work on— they came with their own bodyguard— and he submitted some beats to Dr. Dre for Detox, but mostly he’s been off the grid. Limited access to technology is to blame.
“I just got up on email,” he says. “I didn’t have the Internet. I couldn’t be contacted… Plus, there were spots where the Internet wasn’t worth shit anyway. Puerto Rico is one of the more advanced places, actually. There are other places where you have to wait like three weeks just to get Internet.”
In talking to Wesley you get the sense that even with Internet issues, he was comfortable in early retirement. Here’s a guy who had successfully managed to cut himself off from a world he once navigated so well, and there was no real reason for him to reconnect. The music industry has short term memory and is an unforgiving place. Who would want to leave the tropics to get back into that rat race?
“When I was living in New York, life was heavy there,” he says. “So much equipment and furniture and shit like that. After I started moving around a lot, all I had was my equipment. Even clothes. Like, I’ll wear the same clothes every day. You can be like that and you’re fitting in with everybody. So it wasn’t like having a lot of clothes and knick-knacks and dumb shit like that.”
And yet Dorsey Wesley is returning to the states full time this summer, setting back up in his Midtown studio, in New York City. Time will tell if his music makes it back on the charts.
Read the FULL interview with Megahertz at Complex.
Paul Cantor is a writer, editor and music producer based in New York. Formerly an editor at AOL Music, his writing has appeared at Rolling Stone, MTV News, VICE and Billboard, among others outlets. Throughout his 10-year career he’s written/produced records for dozens of artists and provided creative services to brands like Disney, the CW Network, Verizon, Converse and HBO. His commentary has been tapped by the likes of CNN and Al Jazeera, and a selection of his recent work can be found HERE.
