#afrodominican

Happy birthday, The Kid Mero!

Joel Martinez (born May 15, 1983), professionally known as The Kid Mero, is a Dominican-American writer, comedian, TV personality, voice actor, YouTube personality, music blogger and Twitter personality. He rose to prominence alongside fellow Bronx native Desus Nice with their Complex TV46-episode podcast Desus vs. Mero, which first premiered on December 18, 2013. As of season 5, he is a cast member of MTV2's Guy Code with Desus Nice.[1][2] He was the co-host of Viceland's Desus & Mero talk show alongside Desus until June 2018, and currently co-hosts Desus & Merowhich premiered on February 21, 2019 on Showtime.[3]

Mero was born in Washington Heights, Manhattan to Dominican immigrant parents, and the family moved to the Bronx when he was young.[4]Martinez is Afro-Latino and grew up speaking Spanish. His childhood nickname was "Romiro," which is the origin of the moniker Mero.[4]

He realized he was talented at comedy from a young age but was not particularly interested in televised comedy or stand-up comedians growing up.[4][5]

Mero graduated from I.S. 117 in the Bronx. [4]

Mero previously worked as a teaching aide at a school in The Bronx. He later began writing for Vice's music platform Noisey in 2012. His first article for them was published online on November 14, 2012; it was a review of Canadian electronic music duo Crystal Castles's album III.[6] In total, he wrote 69 articles for Noisey between November 2012 and March 2014, most of which were album and mixtape reviews, and all written in caps lock.[7]

In December 2014, MTV announced that The Kid Mero and Desus Nice would be joining the cast of Guy Code for season 5, along with 11 other new cast members.[8][9] They appeared on the first episode of season 5, which was originally aired on January 14, 2015.[10]

On August 30, 2016, Viceland announced Desus & Mero which premiered on October 17, 2016. The half-hour show ran Monday-Thursday, hosted by the Bronx-reared comedic duo.[11][12] Its finale aired on June 28, 2018. Mero currently co-hosts Desus & Mero which premiered on February 21, 2019 on Showtime.[3]