Sometimes the stars seem to miraculously align for a collaboration to occur. Take for instance the meeting of ZelooperZ and Shigeto. One’s a Danny Brown-approved rapper and member of the Bruiser Brigade family, and one’s a long-time producer on the Ghostly International label. Both happen to hail from Detroit, and both were eagerly looking to collaborate on a left-of-left-field hip hop project. What’s more: their names, when combined and abbreviated, come out as “ZGTO,” which sounds so-phonetically-perfectly like ‘the ghetto’ that a debut album featuring the duo and called A Piece of the Geto could basically not make MORE perfect sense.
“It’s a representation of what two brothers from completely different environment can give each other,” explains Shigeto. “The music is freedom for us. It’s a chance to say that all of those rules that you thought existed, don’t exist.” ZelooperZ concurs: “It’s like a puzzle that was never supposed to fit together. It looks crazy but the vibe is fun.”
And speaking of looking crazy, as you can tell from the purple fields and spaced-out weirdness of ZGTO’s debut video for A Piece of the Geto’s lead single “Off Dat” streaming down below, the duo are bringing a fresh approach to leftfield hip-hop, which will be further mapped out when the full album drops on August 4 via Ghostly International and Third Man Records. Head here to pre-order and check out the cover art and full-album tracklist down below the clip.
A Piece of the Geto tracklisting:
01. Drownin in The Paint
02. Long Ass Time
03. Whippin
04. Hollow
05. Band Man
06. Remedy
07. Off Dat
08. Atomic Fog
09. Everlast
10. Unconditional Love
11. Unfold