Zzz. Takes Inspiration From South Florida's SoundCloud Rap Era

It's been a chaotic handful of years for Zzz. (AKA Sam Zelaya), having gone from his dorm room on the University of Florida campus in Gainesville to being signed by Warner Records and Grade A Productions to hitting the stage of festivals like Lyrical Lemonade's Summer Smash in Chicago.

The 20-year-old Miami native has recently released his EP, Sam, a seven-track project featuring production from Travis Barker and Marshmello and a feature from rapper NoCap. It's an impressive feat for someone who started producing music not that long ago, but what makes Z's music so special is the vulnerability and authenticity on display.

"It's weird 'cause with me when I make music, I don't really write — I'll just punch in," Zelaya tells New Times. "All my music is just a feeling straight from my head, just thinking about something and just letting it out. I never really second-guess myself."

Thanks to his blitzkrieg style of making songs in 15 to 20 minutes, Z has amassed a song catalogue rumored to contain 1,000 tracks.

It's not entirely surprising considering his influences include XXXtentacion and Juice Wrld, two SoundCloud-era rappers who left so much music in their wake that their estates are still releasing songs posthumously. He's also a product of that very same South Florida SoundCloud rap scene that turned artists like X, Ski Mask the Slump God, Lil Pump, Denzel Curry, Smokepurpp, and Kodak Black into household names.

"Growing up in Miami, it was the craziest time, and it had a huge impact," he says. "When I heard X's music when it had just come out, it's what really triggered me into that mode where I could do something like music. Then, watching the impact he had after, because people almost looked at it as a joke in the beginning, like, 'Oh, it's just rage music.' Then, when I saw where he took the creative perspective with his music, it was incredible, and I feel like that taught me a lot, too."
Poised to be one of the emerging artists of his generation, Z understands the landscape in which the music industry finds itself today. SoundCloud, while vital for the generation before him, is just a shell of its former self these days, with streaming services Spotify and Apple Music making it easier for new artists to upload their music onto their platforms while also providing better analytics. Along with SoundCloud, hip-hop has slowly started to dip on the Billboard charts, with some even speculating that the genre's cultural power has begun to wane.

Z sees hip-hop's current struggles as a product of present-day artists isolating themselves from other creative minds.

"Everybody felt that wave like in Florida — that needs to come back," he shares. "I feel like there's an issue in music right now where people are more separate than together in the music scene. I see it in a way where the internet separates a lot of artists from each other."

Collaboration isn't an issue for Z, who got to work with pop-punk legend and Blink-128 drummer Travis Barker, who has produced for acts like Trippie Redd, Machine Gun Kelly, and Willow. Though, Zelaya admits he hasn't kept up with Barker's production work. "To be honest, there's a lot of music that I haven't really heard," he says.

Still, Z shares that he had quite the experience working with Barker.

"I DMed like a lot of people when I was in high school making music," he explains. "So, like seeing an old DM that I had sent after seeing me on the internet, it grabbed his attention. He said he saw the old DM and was like, 'Whoa! This is crazy!' It was super genuine, and it was super fun."

In the studio, Zelaya was in awe of Barker and his expertise behind the drums. "I've never seen that shit in my life. He was doing the percussion with his hands and his fists on his knees," he adds.
As far as writing songs with him, Zelaya says Barker asked him what was on his mind before putting pen to paper. "I told him how sometimes I feel like I do so much for someone, and they just don't understand how much I'm going out of my way to try to do something for them, and they don't appreciate it in the way that I think they should. And I guess sometimes it's like they don't even think it means anything to them." That discussion led to the track "Nothing 2 U" on the EP, which also features an acoustic version of the song.

Following the unplugged take on "Nothing 2 U," the EP's closer, "I Moved Away," touches on Z's literal and emotional journey from Florida to Los Angeles.

"'Moved Away' really means a lot to me personally because it's just about my life and how things change so fast, and how that affected my relationship, my family, a bunch of things," he says. "It's just like the reality of life when it comes to moving away, and I feel like a lot of people move away at a certain time in their life." He calls the track the perfect explanation of a readjustment. "I love that it's the last song because it's just showing them that this is where I'm at now, and this is the last I have to say in this first chapter."

Though Zelaya currently calls the West Coast home, the Palmetto Bay native hopes to move back to South Florida one day.

"I want to crib in the Coconut Grove," he says without hesitation. "That's the main spot I'd probably want to stay at."