DZY RAE | Washington | Music
AC: DZY tell us about your name. How did you get it or think of it?
DZY: The name is a little tribute for all the growth music and general creative expression has done for me as a developing person. I genuinely feel born again through the music, and the name is symbolic of that, I want to give my everything to music. It’s something to remind myself of my musical roots.
I decided on a “first name & last name”-type alias as a homage to the 90’s, back when everybody had a first and last name in rap. I look towards Method Man, Snoop Dogg, Q Tip, Phife Dawg, Big Boi, Andre 3000, Mos Def, Black Thought, and many more for inspiration on that. I went through a huge “real rap” phase growing up.
DZY is derived from Lil’ Wayne’s “Weezy” nickname he started running with a while back. The man had an immaculate run and I want to carry the torch in a sense, even though he’s still killing it if you ask me. Shoutout my favorite rapper next to Lupe.
& RAE is from Corinne Bailey Rae. She’s a amazing song writer with a beautiful soul and the realness she captures in her music is something I’d like to aspire to. I’m more inspired by indie music for my raps now a days than anything else.
AC: You are from Seattle/Tacoma, Washington. So many well known musicians come from there or seek the area out for success. How does the music scene in Washington play into your music if at all?
DZY: I wish I could say the music that came from here inspired my own. I only just heard Nirvana’s “Nevermind” like a couple years ago. Which by the way, mind blown. Macklemore is meh to me. I know a few artists out here that are banging though, I’m not trying to disrespect the culture out here. Fatal Lucciano is a super dope underground rapper from here. Fleet Foxes are the shit. Blue Scholars had a song or two I played back in high school. Nacho Picasso is cool, Shabazz Palaces are pretty dope.
I guess I’d have to say living in Washington inspires me to be unique and definitive as an artist. We’re kind of scattered sonically. Everyone out here is mad unique, trying to start their own movement. I feel by the end of the decade the PAC West will have a very crazy sound. I want to become a primary ingredient to the area’s sound.
AC: Do you remember the first time you free styled or rapped? What was it like?
DZY: Hell yeah, I was playing Lil Wayne’s “Single”, which is one of my favorite songs ever from him. The beat had so much space in it, I could hear words filling in the spaces as I listened to the song for the millionth time, so I looked up the instrumental and wrote a 16. It took like 4, 5 days haha. I was definitely rapping about things I didn’t have and haven’t done at that time, had to change that up. The first time I free styled I was with my friend Dinless, who is absolutely amazing check him out, and I choked. Couldn’t do it. He made me just start rhyming basic words that didn’t even make sense and then it finally started to flow.
AC: Why did you choose to make hip hop music? Was it a choice or did it happen naturally?
DZY: I listened to Lupe Fiasco’s “The Cool” one day while I was walking home and it was a wrap. I knew I wanted to rap. I found my identity through it. I walk hip hop, talk hip hop, breathe hip hop.
AC: Tell us about some of the challenges you experience as a young artist. Have you ever thought about giving up?
DZY: Oh god yes, I used to all the time. It’s just a hard route to go down. The amount of competition keeps growing and a lot of people are really dope at what they do. People don’t support you because they don’t want to raise your hopes, and if they do they do it cautiously. You don’t get a grade or a promotion to symbolically tell you you’re making the right moves and doing them well. Its just one giant risk. But fuck it, whats a life without risks. I want to die knowing I pursued my dreams.
AC: What inspires your music? How do you create your lyrics and concepts for making music?
DZY: Life and the emotions we experience. Pain, happiness, anger, sadness, all of them are a shade of paint to color the canvas with. I see colors in my head when I hear songs and let them take life.
Also the fact that there aren’t many asian anythings in media, rappers, actors or whatever. I want to represent my people.
AC: What has it been like for you to be Korean in the US and the music scene? Good? Bad?
DZY: It’s both. Growing up it was tough because at home I would get in trouble for being “too american” & at school I was made fun of by the white kids for not being white. It was hard to identify with either culture. I made a lot of friends with hispanic and black kids, with some of the weird asian kids mixed in. I guess those experience shaped how I looked at myself in the music scene. When I got close with all these different types of people the shallow differences started to fade and become invisible.
I think when you start to creatively express yourself you are whatever you make yourself out to be.
Representation is important though. I do want to promote a strong asian male image in music, I feel the asian male is very negatively stigmatized in american society, while the asian women are heavily fetishized. A lot needs to change.
AC: What is the best piece of advice you’ve been given in any context? What piece of advice would you give to anyone who asked?
DZY: Do what makes you happy and let it kill you. My answer to both questions.
AC: Tell the people how they can find your music and social media accounts.
DZY: Soundcloud.com/dzyrae, @dzyrae on Instagram, @deldzy on twitter, dhso on tumblr
AC: Anything you would like to share with the world?
DZY: Yeah, don’t vote for Donald Trump and listen to the Gorillaz.
AC: What is your favorite song from your latest project? Tell us about the song, it’s lyrics and how the piece came together.
DZY: When You Come Through easily, its a really triumphant song, and about just getting your life in order until that makes you feel like the illest man/woman in the world. I want to feel like that song feels all the time. I want people to feel good about themselves, regardless of which walk of life you came from, when they listen to it. I made it when I found out my ma was going to stay in chemo ’til the day she dies. I was trying to overcome the news.
