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There appear to be at the least two distinct personalities inside Slusar’s rap persona. The Zhe the Free who oversaw these raucous freestyling periods could be very completely different than the Zhe the Free who went into the studio final yr to document her easy debut, The Love EP, which started 2021 within the No. 1 spot on CJSW’s hip-hop charts.
“I like with the ability to be each a freestyle artist and a recording artist as a result of they’re very completely different,” she says. “They’re very completely different in feeling. However they each actually gentle me up.”
If there’s an overlap between the 2 Zhes, it’s a way that hip-hop needs to be a welcoming, free-for-all group. Zhe says the Cypher Membership was designed to broaden hip-hop tradition, creating house for various voices within the style.
The 5 tracks on the EP, which was launched final fall, supply variations of its titular theme. Love, after all, might be the oldest theme in popular culture, however maybe much less prevalent on the earth of hip-hop than another genres. For Zhe, this multi-faceted exploration of affection was additionally meant to be communal and broaden style boundaries.
“I attempt to have lyrics that take folks into tales or take folks into feelings,” she says. “The kind of music I like has wonderful tales and wonderful feelings and the lyricists I actually respect do each these issues. I really feel just like the EP goes on that journey of the weather of affection. It’s a lot deeper than romantic love. In fact, there’s that flirtation and horny playfulness, but additionally that richer aspect of exploring self-love and understanding forgiveness and that concept of unconditionally uncovering one other being, whether or not that being is your self or a companion or one thing that you just like to do. There’s plenty of metaphors and issues that possibly aren’t specific and there’s stuff that’s simply easy love songs.”
