Your browser doesn't support audio playback.
This conversation originally aired in the Oct. 12, 2025 episode of Inside Appalachia.
Rapping has kept Byron Mack going through life changes, ranging from health problems to the collapse of his business.
Mack was featured on Inside Appalachia in 2023, when he purchased the legendary Flat Five Studio from its founder and longtime owner Tom Ohmsen. Ohmsen recorded a range of musicians but hit the jackpot when Flat Five became a destination for Dave Matthews Band to record some tracks on its debut album, Remember Two Things.
When Ohmsen decided to retire, he sold the studio to Mack, who was one of his engineers. Mack came to the studio from a background in hip hop that included rapping, production and making beats for other artists.
Since that story first aired in the summer of 2023, Mack has been through some changes. Inside Appalachia Host Mason Adams sat down with him at his home in Salem, Virginia.
Photo courtesy of Byron Mack
The transcript below has been lightly edited for clarity.
Adams: The last time our listeners heard you on Inside Appalachia, you had purchased Flat Five Studio, but faced the daunting task of running a studio in the 2020s. Would you mind sharing what’s happened since then?
Mack: It almost seems like forever ago when I made that purchase. I was trying to keep something going that had been going at that point for 30 years. I got in and made a lot of improvements, updated the place. But as I took over, a lot of what I would call the old-school clientele, it’s like they retired with Tom. There was no bad blood or any bad service rendered, anything like that. But those people retired with the business at the same time I was trying to keep something going and battling against my health at the time, and so it was really hard to keep it going, and I finally had to bring it to a conclusion back in June 2024.
Adams: You never stopped recording. You’re still doing production work, you’re still working with clients. You’re still making your own beats.
Mack: The cool thing is, one of my interns from Flat Five back years ago, had got hired by the city of Roanoke to open up a studio in the old Fishburn mansion. He said, “Hey, why don’t you come over here and engineer with us?” I ended up getting a job with Roanoke city audio engineering over in a community center at Fishburn mansion. It gave me an opportunity to make money without the overhead of dealing with owning the studio, and they give me a pretty free rein to be able to do what I need to do. So it’s a great situation.
Adams: You alluded to some struggles with health. I’m interested in hearing a little bit more about that.
Mack: The whole inspiration behind my album, which is titled But I Lived, is because I had reached a point back in 2018, early 2019, [when] I tore my patellar tendon on the road. I was on the way to do a gig. The crazy thing is, I still did the gig. I still performed, because I was really underestimating the injury. I come to find out later that night, I had fractured my ankle as well. So the fact that I stood up for 30 minutes and performed, that’s a whole other thing.
When I was in the hospital, they said, “Mr. Mack, do you realize you have chronic kidney disease?” I wasn’t really familiar with the complications of that, but it was like, “Well, you know, we’ll manage it.” And I hear that, “we’ll manage it,” so that’s what sticks in my mind over time.
Since 2019, I would notice these subtle changes in my body function, and my kidney function in particular, and my leg would always stay really swollen. No matter what type of treatments they would give me to get fluid off my leg, it would not leave. And I was like, “Is this a me thing or something I’m doing wrong?” And I come to find out that my kidneys were unable to process different things to keep that fluid off of my leg.
What started happening was that fluid started going to other places. It ended in me going on dialysis back in early December 2024, but it’s worked out. I feel great since I’ve been on that. Yes, I do need a kidney transplant, but right now, I feel the best that I’ve felt in a long time. I have an 8-year-old daughter. From her being born to age seven, she has never seen me run, much less even move fast. I still would go out and do these sports programs with her, even though I couldn’t even run, and I’d be out there struggling. But you know, it’s your kid; you do anything for your kid,
Adams: So you went through the experience with the studio. You had the health scare with your kidneys. You’re a parent. You’re still producing music for other people. You’re still producing your own music. You’re performing. What keeps you going through all that?
Mack: I have to remind myself all the time, because being so caught up in the business side of things, sometimes you can lose what the original drive, the original intention was. And I remind myself constantly, [it’s] for mental health. I rap for my mental health. As a writer, it allows me to stay healthy mentally, to be able to express myself like that. I rap because it keeps my mental health where I need it to be. My first show back after I went on dialysis [was] in Raleigh, North Carolina. I get there. I’m nervous. I’m [usually] not nervous, really, before shows. But this was like, “All right, I’ve been doing this dialysis three times a week, and this and that. Let’s see how my body reacts.” And I got up and after I made it to the third song, I was like, “I’m back.”
——
Salem, Virginia, rapper Byron Mack has a new album with his longtime collaborator, Van Gunz, coming out in November 2025. His next solo album is titled, But I Lived and will be released in early 2026.