Loved the groove in Lemonade. What comes first in your music? The beat or the lyrics?

(ZUU) Thanks! On this one, the beat came first. In actual fact, the original demo was very different… It was just me singing on it. The strange vocal sample in the intro is me singing ‘You came here on your own, you lied’ but I ended up just chopping the ‘own’ & ‘lie’ words out. Have a listen and see if you can hear what I’m talking about! Its funny how ideas can transform during the writing process.

What is the main topic of your lyrics?

(JV) My lyrics are about all my experiences, my fantasies, my ups downs smiles and frowns. As of late it’s been about motivation and focus. Scratch that, I’m on some mind bending shit as far as the craft. Man I just be living.

You entered the world of non-fungible tokens. Tell us a few things about it.

(ZUU) Yeah! We’ve been working on this concept for a long time. We really wanted to do something truly unique with our debut E.P. We have 4-tracks on the debut and each one is being released as a single. Each single has its own artwork which we digitized and animated to create an NFT. The NFT also has audio not heard on the single itself. We are selling each NFT for $100 and you get access to the stems so the purchaser can remix our music if they want. The best (and most innovative part) is that whoever buys the NFT gets 10% royalties for the track it relates to. They will be supporting us but also making money in return. Its a win-win!

A korg sampler and an acoustic drum kit. Does this mean that in the question software vs hardware you would pick the latter?

(ZUU) Nah, I’m not a purist. They are all just tools in my opinion. I absolutely love hardware and use it a lot in my writing but it has its downsides. I personally wouldn’t release a track only using software either though. I feel like its not personal enough if you do that. Nothing ‘unexpected’ can happen. I like having a mic on and just hitting stuff in my studio and plugging random noise boxes in and seeing what happens. That helps me feel in the creative zone. Staring at a computer screen the whole time just feels boring to me.

What does hip hop symbolize in your opinion?

(JV) Hiphop or music in general is about innovation. Taking what you would not expect and making it a means of communication, harnessing the unexpected and giving it its just due. Hiphop is the mother of that shit cause we take what we want and do what we want. We give light to the often forgotten artists. It’s about being different, at least the music leg of hiphop (if we getting real about it) cause it’s truly a way of being. The music is a by-product.

Favorite album of the past decade?

(JV) Earl sweatshirt – ‘Some rap songs’
(ZUU) Isaiah Rashad – ‘The Sun’s Tirade’

Future plans?

(JV) Africa and acid.

Thank you!

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Describe your sound in 3 words

(JV) colourful, avant garde, mudbutt.

You blend different genres in your music. Tell us a few things about your creative process

(ZUU) Something interesting about our forthcoming E.P. is that three of the four tracks are written totally on an Electribe Sampler 2. Its a really janky & inexpensive piece of equipment. It has a lofi kind of vibe and often glitches quite a fair bit which makes the audio characterful. Anyone who owns one of these machines could recreate the sounds on our E.P. quite easily. I liked blending this sampler with my accoustic drum kit. I feel a lot of hiphop & pop is just pure samples these days. I prefer to use mics and actually capture something unique in a time and in a space. It might not have the ‘fidelity’ of some super produced drum kit out of Abbey Road but our music allows for the blend of the raw and polished sounds. We’re not looking to compete sonically with anyone.

Unsigned, unmanaged & completely independent, you managed to sync your music to a national TV advert. What advice would you give to young artists who want to follow your success path?

(ZUU) TALK TO EVERYONE. Its the key to life. Its said over and over in interviews to the point where it has become meaningless, but its true! Networking is a tried and tested means to success. The amount of opportunites which have opened up to Johnny and myself purely because we know a tonne of people in the music industry is insane. You have to emerse & surround yourself with people in all areas of music. Just enjoy connecting with people. Don’t go into these interactions focussing on how you might beneifit. That is disingenuous and people will see you coming from a mile away. Be genuine and take honest interest in what they are doing. If they are in the music industry conversing with them is your number one tool to moving your career forward.

Which is your most personal and honest lyric?

(JV) I haven’t written my most honest personal lyric yet.

What would you change in the music industry?

(ZUU) I would change the way streaming revenue works. I think blockchain technology is going to improve streaming income for artists in the future. I’ll give you an example… Spotify currently pays £0.0031 per stream. Say the average person streams 20 tracks per day. That equals around 500 streams per month. 500 x £0.0031 = £1.55

This means that per month, only £1.55 of your £9.99 subscription is going towards paying the artists. £8.44 is going directly to Spotify.

Imagine a streaming service where you only paid for the tracks you streamed? You could double the amount of streaming royalties artists would get & still give the end listener a 70% discount on their monthly bill. I think someone will build a decentralised music streaming service on one of the blockchains soon and this will become a reality. Who knows… maybe I’ll go and do it!

What is the most useless talent you have?

(JV) my most useless talent is doing nothing

One last thing we should know about you?

(JV) I’ve been in a house fire that burned up my first solo album back in 2005, I lost my 2nd solo album in a flood. Come hell and high water we are now bringing our your JV/ZUU project.

Thank you!

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