Murs 16,952

Nicholas Carter, better known as Murs (sometimes stylized as MURS), is an American hip hop artist from Los Angeles, California. His name didn’t originally have a meaning, but has since become a backronym and has come to mean several things over his 20+ years as an MC:

• Making the Universe Recognize and Submit
• Making Underground Raw Shit
• Walls (French translation)
• Motherfuckers Usually Rhyme the Same

Murs became a mainstay with the release of his first solo album, F'Real, in 1997, and in 2003 he released his debut album on Definitive Jux, The End in the Beginning. Murs released MURS for President in 2008 under Warner Bros. Records, making it his first and only album to be released under a major label. Shortly after, Murs signed to Strange Music in 2014 and released 3 albums under the label: Have a Nice Life (2015), Captain California (2017), and A Strange Journey Into the Unimaginable (2018).

He found his niche as a melancholic rapper, one unafraid of sharing his personal experiences with audiences:

I don’t know, I’ve always been a pretty vulnerable artist…
I think that music is my shield and I’m able to express it that way. So I feel comfortable over a beat, more comfortable than just face to face… I don’t feel weak. I don’t feel vulnerable. I almost kind of feel like I’m cheating because if anybody shits on the album it’s like…I think people might feel bad.

He has also worked collaboratively as a member of many groups, most notably:

• 3 Melancholy Gypsys, a group he formed with 2 of his high school friends (Eligh and Scarub) in 1996.
• Living Legends, a nine man collective of rappers from California.
• Felt, a collaboration started in 2000 with Slug.
• Murs X Fashawn, a duo that worked to create the 2012 album This Generation
• Netherworlds, a group formed in the early 2000s with Himself and Anacron
• The White Mandingos, a punk rock group formed in 2012 with Sacha Jenkins and Darryl Jenifer
• Murs & Terrace Martin, a duo that formed to create the 2011 album Melrose.
• ¡Mursday!, a collaboration between Murs and the group ¡MAYDAY!