Blend

The next year, Brown took ZelooperZ on tour with him, along with Lucki. “I was on some really turnt up high shit, and Lucki was on some low shit. We're opposites, but we're cool as fuck,” ZelooperZ explains. Their careers have had similar paths, too: they both emerged in the early 2010s, received moderate acclaim at first, stayed true for the next few years, and finally blew up when the world came around. This trek makes ZelooperZ a bit of an OG, but also an up-and-comer, because his largest rise is happening right now.

ZelooperZ’s latest project, Moszel Offline, is a nine-track mixtape packed tight with breakneck tread-style bangers, executively produced by F1LTHY from the red-hot Philly collective Working On Dying. ZelooperZ paints now too, and he sells custom pieces to fans via Twitter. Right now, he’s finishing up a series of works for 1XRUN, a local gallery in Detroit.

office spoke to ZelooperZ to gather insight into his upcoming album, turbulent career, and recipe for Moszel Offline.

What’s up, man?

I just got done shipping some vinyls and some paintings. Now I'm trying to get my brain ready to paint some more shit, and I'm finalizing some mixes for my next project, which will probably drop in the wintertime.

What! You just dropped Moszel Offline, and two videos, last week!

I'm always on the next shit. It just don't stop.

How did Moszel Offline come about?

I always wanted to do some shit outside of my group that was fast, and me and F1LTHY made that project fast as hell. I wanted to tap in with a different side of people. The music is raunchy, but it's technical too. The name, Moszel Offline, is about shutting off, while you listen to it, but at the same time, you're being turned on to some other shit. You’re turning over the engine. I'm shutting off the shit that you [typically] hear for this next shit. But only you know that.

That's sick. What did “Moszel” come from?

That's my middle name. My best friend Matrax’s name on instagram is @matraxoffline, so I just stole his shit. He always say I steal his swag, so I wanted to steal some more shit from him.

What did “ZelooperZ” come from?

It came from the art classroom. My friends made it up. It was just “Zeloop” at first, then I added the second part. We were in a group in class, and then I ended up getting suspended for drawing some shit I shouldn't have drawn, about a teacher, and the name stuck from there. I don't know where I got the extra “erz,” but I just ran with it.

That makes so much sense for you. You had a raw moment and you ran with it.

Yeah, that's the whole thing. You got to do that. It's fun and it's scary. It's treacherous, but at the same time, if your life is already treacherous, you don't think about the shit you run with. When I ran with that, I didn't really think about it. I'm just a runner, I'mma run it up.

What’s your writing and recording process like?

Most of the time I sit and write the song while the beat is being made. And then I'll go in and freestyle the first thing that comes to mind, and then finish it off with the written, or vice versa. It doesn't really have a process, it's just to get it out. If I think too hard, it’s not going to be the right message. Most of the time I'm done writing before the beat is even done. And every day there's a new vibe. I be talking about cornbread, and then the next ten songs over, I'm talking about looking at Hawaii's motherfucking skyline at night, the stars. I'm getting everything out because there’ll be a day when I'm like, “Oh yeah, I got that cornbread song,” and it's gon’ be funny to me, it's gon’ make me smile. It ain't always for everybody.

What's your biggest goal with your music or art?

I'm going to own a gallery one day. Probably one in Detroit, and one somewhere hot, probably Miami. Maybe one overseas too, if we could get that shit back open that would be dope. I just want it to have different artists from around the world. I also want to own a gallery just to have my name on that shit, so when I die, that bitch still there.

What role would you say Detroit plays in modern rap?

We're the best, and I'm not just saying that because I'm from there. Everywhere I go, they're playing our shit. We good, we charismatic, we funny, gritty, hard. Everybody wants to look like us. Everybody wears Cartier glasses, to a point where I don't wear Cartier glasses no more. I switched to Chrome Hearts, and now watch everybody else switch. In Detroit, we set trends, that's just what we do. But I feel like everybody is coming together and using each other's juice to come up, which is cool as hell because nobody's trying to be too hard, or too goofy, everybody's just finding their balance. It's cool seeing everybody doing their thing.

Definitely. I feel like Detroit's always been super versatile too, and like you're definitely a great example of that, between your music and your art. How do you decide what medium to express yourself in?

I can get inspired by a song, a joke, a phrase, and it'll make me run upstairs and record. But what makes me paint is good ideas, good money, and good people. You gotta be a good person for me to hop up and paint, and you gotta pay good money. And most of the time, it’s good person before good money. Just come with a dog ass idea, and it’ll be dope. I love experimenting, and commissions always invite new people into my world who teach me about shit. I don't watch all that anime shit, but I do like the colors that they be asking me to paint. I'm self-taught, so most of the shit I learn, I learn from my people.

How would you say you’ve evolved since your initial breakout in 2012?

I wasn't playing the game. Now I've matured a lot just because I know how to handle situations better. At first I wasn't really into talking to people. I hated doing interviews, but today, I feel more smooth. Most of the time I'd be too nervous to talk. And where I'm from we don't speak on certain shit. So when somebody would interview me, I would always resort to something that wouldn't get me in trouble, so I ended up not speaking on a lot of shit going on in my life. It’s the same thing with my music. I'm kind of, like, opening up now, just really trying to get people to understand me.
 

That’s beautiful. It seems like people are finally starting to get it. You never switched up or sold out, the world just finally caught up.

I’ve been saying the same shit. I'm just re-rocking myself. Ain't no need to go do something else when I already created my own essence. Now that more people are getting put on, more people are getting used to being themselves. They’re just getting more comfortable with the shit I already been on.

I love that. And you’ve been going so hard since the beginning.

Yeah, because I died on that shit. When you give yourself to something that you love, you understand that. You don’t have nothing else. You don't even got nothing to eat; all you got is that song that you recorded. You're starving, but you can eat that song for the day. Little shit like that kept me going. Right now, during this corona shit, there’s a weird kind of smirk I get because everybody’s in this same kind of predicament, and my life's been like this. I done had recessions in my life, droughts, and hardships to where we couldn't even fend for ourselves. So this is not nothing new for me. But it’s fucked up because everybody has different tensions and tolerances and some people can’t take it. I'm blessed and humbled to be able to still work and have the same energy about shit.

Absolutely. And it’s wild to see how COVID has exposed everyone’s true colors, especially musicians—some are grinding harder, some are giving up.

Some people didn't need to do this shit in the beginning. If you doing this shit for monetary value, you shouldn't do it. If you're not doing this for the love of it, if you aint got no heart in it, you shouldn't do it.

Now, in 2020, you're like a glue between so many different worlds. Like for me, I got into F1LTHY and Working On Dying from early Black Kray songs, who I discovered at a Yung Lean show, and following Danny Brown led me to Bruiser Brigade, which led me to you. Now F1LTHY just produced your album, and you’ve been rapping with Earl Sweatshirt, who went to highschool with me. You're bringing so many different fan bases together just by being yourself.

Everybody was always tapped in with me in different ways, but I wasn't paying attention. I think I was too fried. But then I realized I gotta tap in with these people. They already show love to me, and it's fun as fuck when you can connect with people on a different basis than music. We talk about clothes. We talk about life. We talk about relationships and shit. I'd rather have that than the music anyway.