On a recent morning beneath the city’s historic water tower, a man who once measured success in club bills and opening slots stood where he measures it now: in a camera’s viewfinder, in his son’s glance, in the quiet that follows a line delivered clean. 

Mav, born Ricardo Sanchez, first broke through in Arizona’s scene in the mid-2000s. Last year, after a seven-year hiatus from music, he stepped back into the studio. He calls the comeback less a campaign than a confession.  

His first videos were shot in and around Maricopa.  

“I came back because I was depressed,” he said. “My dad died. Music helped me get back something I had lost: happiness.” 

Sanchez is a Mexican-Puerto Rican hip-hop artist with roots in Chicago and Phoenix. Born near Fullerton and Western in Chicago, he bounced as a kid between big-city blocks and Carrizo Springs, Texas, where his mother’s family lived. He returned to Chicago as a teen, then relocated to Phoenix, where his music career took off.  

In 2005 he released his debut, MicAdvancement, and, by his count, moved more than 100,000 CDs across the Southwest. The Arizona scene embraced him. He opened for Pitbull, Ludacris and YG, and appeared in MTV’s My Block: Phoenix, which helped put the Valley’s rap culture on the map.  

The receipts are still online: a 13-year-old clip for I’m a Winner has 266,000 views; Me Against the World, filmed in and around Maricopa, has 200,000; and Hustlin’ Champion sits at 135,000. For an independent Arizona rapper in that era, those totals made clear how big a deal he was and underline the stakes of this return.

He also helped build it. Sanchez co-founded the crews Sol Camp and GrindKingz, launched PhoenixHipHop.net and later ran the @phxazrap account to spotlight local artists. Arizona State University has even taught Sol Camp’s work in its hip-hop curriculum.  

Sanchez settled in Maricopa in 2010. For a time, he stepped off the stage and onto the sidelines. He coached youth basketball and soccer for the city, raised his kids and decided that if life had to be one thing, he knew which thing it would be. 

“I knew who I was. I was a dad,” said Sanchez.  

And then, as his son went to college, he returned to form. His first new song in 2024 was a dedication to his father. 

His video Me Against the World, filmed in the open desert behind the Sorrento neighborhood, signaled a home base and a visual sensibility. 

“That was a hard song to write, to perform,” he said. “But it unlocked me mentally. I could finally say what I couldn’t say any other way.” A fresh run of work followed. “Art comes in waves,” he said. “I’m rapping more adult conversations, religion, family, even the past.” 

He is older now: “I’m in my 40s,” he said without apology. And the posture has changed. 

“Before, I was making songs to make a popular song. I didn’t want to be vulnerable. That’s disrespected in hip-hop,” he said. “Now, I don’t care. Everything I have is a bonus period. I’m just going to tell my story, leave a legacy and be truthful.” 

The truth has local coordinates. He shot Mav n Romero at the Maricopa water tower with a Phoenix cameraman who “saw something” in that sun-bleached backdrop. His single Proud of Me was shot in Maricopa’s pecan groves.

“The second verse is for my son,” he said. “I hope you’re proud of me up there,” he added, looking skyward for his father. He said Mav n Romero was placed for Grammy consideration, a first. “Amazing things start happening,” he said. “It’s a step I never took before.” 

Sanchez says the industry he’s reentering is different.

“Music has changed since I last made music,” he said. “Visuals are so important now.”

That suits him. The water tower, the dusty lots, the ordered shade of the pecans; he turns them into lived-in set pieces. 

The comeback now has a name: The Purple EP, released in 2025. It’s a concept-driven set born of loss and renewal, with tracks like Painting Purple Skies, Off the Ropes, Rap Villain and No Streets Is Exempt, featuring SyckSyllables and Romero.

“If I’m going back into music, I’m going to make the best product I can,” he said. “I put the most effort into the mastering process.” 

What hasn’t changed is the impulse that sent him to a microphone in 2005. His sister sings. He sketched before he rhymed. “I always wanted to be part of the industry,” he said, “but music drew me in as the preferred method.” 

As a coach and musician, Sanchez’s message to up-and-coming acts came easy. He offers a coach’s advice. 

“Don’t wait for anybody. Just do it,” he said. “It’s easy to get access to studio spaces. Record it on your phone and send it to an engineer. Everyone has a story. Let them know who you are.” 

Just a few days ago, his son watched him perform, the first time since the boy was small. For a moment, the timeline curved back on itself: the Chicago kid who moved west in the ’90s, the young man lifted by Arizona stages in ’05, the father who went silent for 10 years, the artist who returns to say out loud what living demanded he learn. 

“I’m just trying to make music,” Mav said. “To tell my story.”