Tag: Flatbush Zombies

Single Review by William Ruben Helms

New Audio: Meechy Darko Teams Up with Flatbush Zombies Bandmates and Col3trane on a Breezy Banger

Brooklyn-based hip-hop group Flatbush Zombies — Meechy Darko, Zombie Juice and Erick Arc Elliot — have been friends since grade school, initially bonding over their love of Dragon Ball Z and wrestling. As teenagers, they began experimenting with psychedelics, including psilocybin mushrooms and LSD.

Flatbush Zombies’ Elliot had been making his own solo music, when he decided to bring the group together musically around 2010. The groups popular grew after the release of the “Thug Waffle” video. Later that year, they released their debut mixtape, D.R.U.G.S. (Death and Reincarnation Under God’s Supervision), Since then, they’ve collaborated with a who’s who of hip-hop, including RZA, A$AP Mob, Z-Breezy, Jim Jones, Juicy J, Danny Brown, Action Bronson, Mr. Mutahfuckin’ eXquire, Tech N9ne and Anthony Flammia among others. They’re also part of the East Coast hip-hop supergroup Beast Coast with fellow Brooklynites The Underacheivers and Pro Era.

Building upon a growing profile, the Brooklyn-based trio have made the rounds of the national and international festival circuit, playing sets at The Hudson Project, JMBLYA, Coachella, Pemberton, Afropunk, Paid Dues, North Coast Music Festival, SXSW, Roskilde, Rolling Loud Miami, and Wireless. The trio’s popularity grew even larger through the release of two mixtapes and a handful of music videos before their full-length debut, 2016’s 3001:A Laced Odyssey.

For Flatbush Zombies’ Meechy Darko, stepping out of his comfort zone to create his extremely personal full-length, solo debut Gothic Luxury was a fait accompli decided for him external forces after the killing of his father in early 2020 at the hands of Miami police. Collaborating with Dot Da Genius shook up his usual creative process, resulting in an album that includes drawn-out piano intros and laid-back funk meshed with dark mini symphonies. Throughout the album’s material there’s a through line of brutal honesty and catharsis that further cements the Brooklyn-based artist’s reputation for being among the most candid and rawest emcees out three today.

The Powers Pleasant, JULiA LewiS and Callan co-produced “Sliders,” which features Meechy Darko’s Flatbush Zombies groupmates and Col3trane is the first bit of new material since the release of Gothic Luxury. Centered around a lush and incredibly breezy production featuring twinkling keys, skittering boom bap beats and a sultry bass line, “Sliders” is loose enough for the three emcees to trade fiery and passionate bars, seemingly catching up where they last left off paired with a soulful hook from Col3trane. Arguably “Sliders” may be the most accessible and downright fun song they’ve all released to date while sonically being a slick synthesis of West Coast G-funk and East Coast boom bap.

“Wanted to release a fun song with my brothers before the year was done… Since you think all my music is scary, how’s this for a change?” Meechy Darko says.

Video by William Ruben Helms

New Video: A Cinematic Tour of Brooklyn with Rising Emcee CJ Fly

Born Chaine St. Aubin Downer Jr., the only child of a Bajan mother and a Jamaican father, the rising Brooklyn-born and based emcee CJ Fly was born and raised in Flatbush until his teens, when he moved to Bedford Stuyvesant. Although he grew up in a music loving home, as a child, the rising Brooklyn-born and-based emcee wasn’t familiar with much hip-hop, as a result of his parents mainly listening to the music of their homelands — reggae, soca and other genres and styles. But he shared their love of music and always wanted to be a musician of some sort. 

As a seventh grader, Downer started writing poetry but the moment he discoveredA Tribe Called Quest changed his life — from that point on, he fell in love with hip-hop and wanted to rap. In high school, he met the founding members of the Pro Era crew and began pursuing a music career: throughout 2012 and 2013, he was featured on the many of the collective’s projects and by the end of 2013, he released his critically acclaimed debut mixtape Thee Way Eye See It. 2016 saw the release of his sophomore mixtape FLYTRAP.

Since the release of FLYTRAP, CJ Fly has been busy: he contributed prominent verses on hip-hop supergroup Beast Coast’s Escape From New York and as a result, he made his national TV debut appearance on The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon last summer. After touring as a member of Beast Coast, alongside Joey Bada$$, Flatbush Zombies, The Underachievers and various members of the Pro Era crew, he’s been gearing up to release his highly-anticipated Statik Selektah-produced full-length debut RUDEBWOY, which is slated for a March 6, 2020 release through Pro Era Records. 

“Show You,” RUDEBWOY’s third and latest single is a high-energy, golden era hip-hop-like track built around driving boom-bap beats and a Roy Ayers-like sample centered around shimmering Rhodes arpeggios and a soulful horn line. Seemingly indebted to The Low End Theory-era Tribe, the song finds the rising Brooklyn-born and-based emcee spitting personal, autobiographical rhymes discussing his struggles — from poverty to bouncing between his mother’s and father’s homes and different neighborhoods, and moving towards the present day. But the song is also partly love song to his home borough, proudly shouting out the neighborhoods he lived in and loved, the parks he played in, hung out and dreamt in, where family and friends got shot and died, essentially showing listeners where it’s nice and where it ain’t. 

“‘Show You’ is a high energy boom bap classic that was created to take listeners on a journey through Brooklyn from my birth to present,” CJ Fly explains in press notes. “It’s a preview into my life and almost biographical. I reel things that some of my closest friends or fans may not have even known about myself and my father.” 

Directed by David Janoff, and CJ Fly the recently released video for “Show You” stars CJ Fly and his girlfriend Emilia Ortiz in a cinematically shot tour of his home borough that includes stops to see his father and his mother, the neighborhoods he lived in, hangs out in and loves. It’s a loving look at a diverse and complex borough, revealing the inherent beauty of its rough and tumble neighborhoods, as well as its more famously known neighborhoods — but it’s also an intimate look into the artist’s life.