After having spent the pandemic chomping at the bit by throwing songs here and there like so many bottles in the sea of music on the Web, Zach Zoya finally presses the accelerator by proposing No Love Is Ever Wasted, his second solo EP, through which he refines his hybrid musical personality of a rapper who sings well and a singer who knows how to rap well. Conversation around the image of the modern pop star and the making of a digital personality with the Quebec musician who aspires to international recognition.
“I’m not going to lie to you, our vision, at the base, was to go all out with a big record that would break everything and tours in the United States and Europe,” admits Zach Zoya, sitting on the sofa of the listening studio in the bright offices of Universal Music, located on Place D’Youville, in Old Montreal. “The pandemic made me review my approach. It would have been pointless to release a first big record at that time, when the singles raise expectations. “But beyond the pandemic, there is behind that a reflection on the state of the music industry: it is better to start by releasing songs, since that is mainly what people listen to on music platforms. streaming — in any case, people of my generation no longer listen to music in the same way. »
First recruited by the house Discs 7th Ciel, the original Rouynorandien was not even yet 22 years old when he joined the stable of the multinational, which saw in him a pop star, in a world where rap has become the new popular music. The guy raps a lot about love because, unlike the 50 Cent and Young Thug he says he grew up with, he can’t talk about the street and its difficulties: “That’s not what I’ve been through , it does not match my values either. »
“Real Singers”
He raps about love, therefore, but also sings it, and that’s what this new album reveals to us, even better than spectrumreleased in the fall of 2020: unlike all these other Young Thug emulators who try their hand at melodious refrains, he has a real real voice, barely made up by theauto tune. Not a plasticized and disembodied voice like that of the popular Kid Laroi, a sort of Australian answer to Justin Bieber, nope: he has soul in him, Zoya, it sweats from the acoustics Strangers in the Housethe first of eight new songs featured.
“We are part of this generation that grew up with the sound ofauto tune “, a software that allows you to “place” – in real time, even when used in concert – the voice of a singer on the right key, but whose parameters also allow you to modify the appearance of the voice, with as a result, young singers, explains Zach Zoya, “learn to sing in a different way. Take a piano: you play a note, it’s in tune. It’s as if theauto tune made the voice “pianistic”, always on the right note, so it emphasizes melodies rather than the character of a voice. Personally, what interests me is precisely the feeling voice,” he says, acknowledging the influence of R&B stars Usher and Beyoncé, “real singers.
But while a Kid Laroi climbs the ranks of the Billboard 200, Zach Zoya is still tying his sneakers. After two years spent composing, recording and planning, he finally started to get busy: the first parts of Charlotte Cardin, business meetings in Toronto and Los Angeles, a first concert given in the United States, a return to Osheaga this summer. The big disc that will break everything will come one day: “I already have an idea of what my album and my career will look like. For now, I’m still exploring,” he says. Evidenced by the mix of genres on his album, with modern R&B-pop on Feelings and My Ex Gurl (very good, that one!), the more classic rap on Understand and frank pop on start-over, a production by Benny Adam. “I try lots of musical directions, but also listening to the audience to find out what they like. »
“A matter of image”
His team convinced him: Zach has the songs, the right collaborators (Ruffsound, Billboard, friends Yuki and Soran, among others), you just have to work to make them heard. Thus, “the development of the character is more important than the music itself, although the music is the backbone of the project, reasons Zoya. The gamesuccess in this industry is very much a question of image”, to which we want to answer that next to him, Kid Laroi looks like a louse.
If appearance has anything to do with success, Zoya won in advance, but of course not everything is so simple, hence the text messages the musician constantly receives from his strategist in digital marketing. “Each day, he offers me a list of things I could to post on Instagram and TikTok… The presence on social networks, the personality that we display on TikTok, that counts. It may be just a hypothesis, but I believe that we are entering the era of virtual identity: all that, social networks, is more than a path to success, it is a need. Before, to advance your career, you visited radio stations; today, you have to put content on social networks. »