The rising 16-year-old opens up about his new project In elsewhere, the terrifying process of revealing his music to friends and family, inspo from unlikely places (Frances Ha x Yungster Jack stutters?) and finding bliss in the abrasive.
“In elsewhere starts with a hook built around the idea of a timeline where I’ve offed myself,” zayok tells me. “It ends with a timeline of me where everything is perfect.”
While some artists nowadays hide their true selves through aesthetic manipulation, zayok runs amok and rips his heart out. He’s only 16 but his sound is already pushing boundaries, with twitchy percussion that detonates into intoxicating EDM outbursts. He blends samples from favorite films and shows like Frances Ha and This Is England with searingly emotive vocals—from his signature stutters to desperate pleas and hopeful mantras.
He treats his latest project In elsewhere like a tablet inscribed with blood, tearing at his flesh just to feel something. Longtime homies from the digicore scene like gunk and fleafriends surround him on the record. It transports me back to the 2000s—like I’m stepping in the rain as I pour my heart out like Ray J in “One Wish.” It also reminds me of Lucki’s Alternative Trap, not so much sonically as the way zayok speaks so honestly. As the album ends, it feels like we’ve just heard a bildungsroman of his life—one where zayok desperately tries to transform the stifled cries of his childhood into joyous outbursts.
He draws from hyperpop and digicore, genres built around maximalism and desires to portray artists’ true identity. Especially for the trans community, hyperpop empowers artists through distorted voices and gender-affirming Auto-Tune. As the scene has shifted from this truth-seeking nature toward hype, zayok revives the original spirit of the sound. He’s reckoning with his own truth as people in real life start to find out about his secret music alias, all the while leading a new guard ready to reorient the online scene with him at the helm.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Josh Moore: How has growing up in South Carolina affected the way you approach your art?
zayok: Everyone I knew had music taste that was very different from me in school. I was bumpin J Dilla and Flying Lotus. I wouldn’t call myself an outcast, but I definitely did feel like one based off of the stuff I listened to.
It was a part of my identity—I became very attached to the idea of standing out once I knew that’s who I was in this place when I was significantly younger. I remember being at my grandmother’s house, on our front porch, and there’d be kids outside. I’d be playing, I don’t know if you ever heard “Phantom Pt. II” by Justice, loud as fuck in the front lawn thinking that someone’s going to hear it and be like, ‘You are so cool.’ I don’t know. Like Discovery by Daft Punk. I thought that was the dopest album ever. But here, no one really cared.
In music class, I would always volunteer and pick the silliest songs. I remember I picked the “House Hunting” song from Adventure Time, “Nothing Like This” by J Dilla, and I think even a Steven Universe track. When I was doing it, I was like, no one fucking cares. I’m putting myself out there to no avail. It’s just a weird feeling to have as an eight-year-old. It felt vulnerable.
More so when I started to drop music in 2023, I mean, I’ve always been under the zayok alias since 2020. I kept my personal life and zayok separate and made sure those things would never cross paths. I was scared of that vulnerability. I was so scared. I didn’t even really want to be attached to that idea of music when it came to me and my IRLs. The only people who knew I made music as zayok were two people I grew up with since second grade. That’s why records like from zay with love* don’t hit to me as much as I’d like them to because they’re not that vulnerable to me. Right now, people are slowly finding out and I’m slowly being like, okay, there’s nothing I can do. It’s such a weird crossover in time where the underground and more electronic sounds as we know are reaching the mainstream so now ears are being opened.
It’s just surprising. Your music is so incredibly vulnerable. So, it’s interesting you’re down to be vulnerable in your music, but after you’ve made the track you’re not able to.
zayok: In music, I’ve always felt safe. It’s why music was the only way I was able to do anything that loud in front of my classmates. Especially with In elsewhere now, I feel like I’m finally biting the bullet and making something loud. I want to make something real. I want to make a musical diary. I want to finally say, okay, this is me on display and that’s it for the first time in my life.
Mostly self-produced, you make these otherworldly beats with constant switch-ups, magical strings, and unique spacing that encourages and enhances the stutters you use vocally. What draws you to these sounds?
zayok: I love the abrasive. I love the loud. I think it’s cool when songs are indiscernible. This morning, I listened to 1000 gecs again for the first time in years. I don’t like that album for the chances it takes, I like the album for its abrasiveness. I love Death Grips not because they’re experimental, but because it’s really loud.
When it comes to strings, I’m so attached to these things I grew up with. I grew up with Kanye strings. My dad sampling stuff with strings.
Stutters like fucking Yungster Jack, you know what I mean? In 2020 that guy was awesome to me. Because you have to take everything that made you who you are as a person and revolve it around you. I think violins are the coolest instrument ever. Guitar solos are awesome to me because that’s what makes me want to cry. Good leads make me want to punch something really bad. The vocal stutters are very awesome. I finally found the way I like doing them. Before it was more like I repeated the same line. Not that I don’t really do that, but I think it’s a very cool way of doing it now where it’s in your face. I’m really having a lot of fun.
Following up on that, how did you grow up? Are your parents musical at all?
zayok: My dad is. My mom isn’t at all. When I grew up, my dad was on FL Studio a lot, leading me to pick it up at 3. And he was like, cool. He never really taught me anything, but he just kind of let me at it. My home, without divulging too much personally, was very abrasive, and I think you can hear that in the explosive songwriting. You could be mistaken and probably think they’re songs about my girlfriend. Like, track four and the second half of track one are definitely about my parents.
On “mutual infection” you use the same strings that you have on tracks like “after all, the rain can’t last forever” and “wrote you last night, awaiting response.” Incredibly powerful and soaring, it’s a trademark for you to clash these crushed and distorted synths with pristine melodies. Will this be a recurring motif? What do these strings signify to you?
zayok: Man, I just can’t stop using the violin. I don’t even know why. Well, I do. It’s just the best instrument ever. It’s like its own voice. It is singing along with me. It’s so awesome. Strings are such an emotional pull for me. I think it’s really important to bring orchestral music to the sphere that I’m in.
If you had all the resources in the world how would you like to flesh out your sound? What’s the message you want to communicate?
zayok: I want to build a fanbase. I want to do an album in a retreat. Get out of here and make an album in a cabin with four or five people and we’re just making the craziest pop album of our lives. We’re not even doing sad music. We’re in the bleakest, snowiest place ever, making the happiest music we can. It’s kind of the idea for this next project I’m working on, where it’s like poppy-ish music.
You’ve created your own community digitally. Surrounding yourself with like-minded artists like gunk, you’re building out a sound that hasn’t been heard before. It’s easy to fall into what others are doing; it’s hard to battle your way through the unknown. What calls you to take this path?
zayok: It’s ’cause I don’t know anything else. As a kid, I was born into all these different soundscapes. I definitely chose my own path. That wasn’t chosen for me, but I don’t know how to do anything else. I’m very inspired by my peers, and without my peers and without the music I consume on a day-to-day basis, I’m really lowkey nothing. You got to have a knack and a drive for it. It’s easy to be lost in the internet. Where people are like internet points. Everybody’s like, yeah, this is good. This is great. I can see that in my future, and I know I’m going to hate it. So, I’m going to try to make the best music I can now before I have to throw my phone away. It’s not like it’s something I don’t want for me and my friends. It can be fun because what’s art without an audience. Community is important. I want to show everyone you can do it too.
You sample vocals a lot. from zay with love* with Skins for example. When you find these clips, do they hit you in the heart and make you want to make a track around them? What’s the creative process with incorporating them in your tracks? What do you hope to evoke?
zayok: In In elsewhere, there’s a lot of tracks from movies I was watching. Frances Ha, for example; it’s this film about this girl. She’s a dancer. Nothing is panning out for her at all. She just rolls with the punches the entire film. The movie doesn’t have any giant plot twists or anything. It is literally just one hour and 30 minutes of this woman’s life where her dreams get crushed. It’s not even a motivational film. It’s just her life. She gets shut down and by the end of the film, she’s like, okay, it’s my life. I was very struck by the ending. It’s one of my favorites.
This is England and its miniseries too. I took so much inspiration from the production on that film and its counterparts where they got a bunch of people and gave them a very basic script and were like, improvise. What came out of it was some of the most vulnerable acting you will see on television, ever. I wanted to take that approach, where you give me nothing. Then I just throw myself on this song. That’s how I went about this entire album, really, and that’s how I wanted all the features to tackle this project as well.
“Three more seventeens” just immediately gave me goosebumps. The emotion just drips off your timbre. It’s this pouring out of not knowing what to do next. The lyrics mature as the track progresses. evangeline also possesses this hopeful timbre. It’s such a beautifully youthful and endearing song of desperate desire to trust that everything will work out. It captures that essence of adolescence in such an honest and beautiful way. This is the perspective of an older person looking back in time. How do you see the song?
zayok: On the day the album is released, I will be turning 16 years old. As I’m working on that song, it will be three more September 17ths until I am 18 years old. The album is written from the perspective of a 20-year-old or 19-year-old me, where everything in my life has genuinely panned out the way me now expects and hopes. It’ll be far away from home, looking back, and letting yourself know that shit is okay. You’ll be known as a pseudo underground rapper back in your hometown. You’re not rich, but people know you have bread now. It’s awkward to come back home. Your relationship with your parents is still rocky. It’s horrible, but you’re self-sufficient and you did what you wanted. So, at the end of the day, you’ll be okay. That’s what life is all about. That was definitely the motto and everybody was on board with that message. I’m so grateful for each and everything that’s going to come towards me. Bad or good, I deserve it, and I’ve earned it because I’m but a human being.
You labeled the album In elsewhere. What does elsewhere mean to you?
zayok: That’s what that last track is. It’s another time. In elsewhere. What if this didn’t happen? In elsewhere. What is this? In elsewhere. What is that? It is all about time. There’s a lot of what-ifs throughout this whole album. It starts with a hook built around the idea of a timeline where I’ve offed myself. It ends with a timeline of me where everything is perfect. It is a very time travel-y album. “There is a world where it hurts and that kills me.” That is me right now. Me in that song who is In elsewhere is me.
Damn this is so beautiful I don’t even want to ask you these funny questions. Alright so, baby Shrek, what is up with that?
zayok: Okay, baby Shrek is awesome. That is the coolest thing I’ve ever done in my career. It’s a collage of short videos of a McDonald’s Shrek, the third baby Shrek toy on my television screen, and it’s portrayed in a one minute video posted to Twitter by wizpem. It came about where I was just watching this video on YouTube, but I paused the TV and I was looking at my phone. I came back up and I just started giggling because I’m like, yo, this is awesome. And people just assumed I was like, high. But I was like, I just thought it was the silliest thing, the most idiotic thing and confusing thing to post on my story. Yeah. It’s so weird that people found me off of that and listened to my music, that’s just funny.
What’s your favorite cartoon and characters?
zayok: Lowkey it changes all the time. Right now, I’d probably have to say, Foster’s Home for Imaginary Friends. But I don’t watch it that much. If we’re going off of rewatches then Amazing World of Gumball. Cheese from Fosters Home is awesome. You can’t make characters like that on television anymore. That’s a moment in time we can’t get back. For Gumball, I’d say Bobert. We need more character development of Bobert.
Favorite meal?
zayok: We have this local spot. I’ve been ordering these 20 piece wings, man, I don’t even know what flavor. It just says hot.
Last question. Halloween’s coming up. Who are you going to be?
zayok: Gumball.
ZAYOK MENTIONED!!!!!!!!!!!!
so cool to see you highlighting zayok, he’s next up fs