During an interview with Entertainment Weekly, Mekai noted that he was a big Power fan when he auditioned for the series. "My parents actually were the biggest fans and I kind of was sleeping on it for the first two seasons, but then I came around and I've been hooked ever since. So when I got the call to be a part of the universe myself, I lost it for a second," he said.
However, he didn't actually realize he was auditioning for the younger version of 50 Cent's character at first. "I literally had no knowledge that I was playing Kanan or it was Raising Kanan until my chemistry read, which was my last audition," he revealed. "Up until this point, we were using code names. I knew it was Power, so that was the thing I was excited about. I didn't care, I just wanted to be on Power. So when they told me, "You're going to play Kanan," I was like, 'Oh! Okay, all right.'"
