Detroit based beatmaker Shigeto and ZelooperZ have been spending time together in the studio for over two years and the final output is finally, almost, here. Together they’re going by the name ZGTO and the first single sounds just like what you’d expect the two to put out together. Smooth, layered beats with strong jazz influences (Shigeto’s signature sound) perfectly hold ZelooperZ laid back rhymes in them. It’s a super snug fit and just feels comfortable.

The press release accompanying the release sheds a lot more light on the collaboration, thought process and what ZGTO set out to make. So i’ll leave that for y’all to read under the single here.

The album is called A Piece Of The Geto and the super chill first track off that is Off Dat.

A Piece Of The Geto by ZGTO There’s also a video with the track that you can check out on Bandcamp.

For vinyl enthusiasts, the album is also available on a limited run (1500 worldwide) smoked marble vinyl.

ZGTO – A Piece Of The Geto

In a city famed for its disparate and varied musical excellence, the Detroit-based alignment of feted electronic artist and producer Shigeto and rapidly rising Bruiser Brigade member ZelooperZ is an entirely natural thing. Introduced by mutual friends in the city, an instant bond was formed, and ZGTO was born.

Over a two-year period, ZelooperZ and Shigeto would collaborate and experiment, honing their sound without any preconceived notions of its final form or an eventual release. Eventually and inevitably though, a full length record transpired.

For Zach Saginaw, aka Shigeto, A Piece Of The Geto is the first time he’s musically stepped out the box of a solo artist and exclusively worked with a vocalist on a project. The opportunity to work with someone seemingly a world away from Shigeto musically, had obvious appeal:

“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.”

A Piece Of The Geto is not exactly like any other album. There is a “less is more” philosophy with the production where the vocals of ZelooperZ are seamlessly interlaced into the fabric of the beats. It’s minimal in a sense, but the emotion felt through the words of ZelooperZ makes the songs as a whole intense and heavy with sentiment.

“I think our music makes people feel things,” says Shigeto. “To be yourself, to be who you want to be, and to be friends and have love for who you want to have love for.”

As their musical partnership progressed, the natural impact expanded each other’s peripheral. ZelooperZ gave Shigeto an opportunity to act as a real music producer, stepping away from the singularity of a solo artist and performer, to feed off of his collaborator and to expand his horizons. In return, this project gave ZelooperZ a new lane to embrace his various artistic sides that he might not have shown before.

“It’s a piece from him and it’s a piece from me,” says ZelooperZ. “It’s a piece from both of us. The whole process has been that. We are just putting in our pieces. It’s like a puzzle that was never supposed to fit together. It looks crazy but the vibe is fun.”

For ZelooperZ, a resident of the west side of Detroit, he’s had a gift with words since he was a kid, growing up in an environment immersed in the street hustle. He would soon have a bigger outlook on life and A Piece Of The Geto is his way of expressing that.

“I want my audience to get out of this what I felt when I was making this,” describes ZelooperZ. “I want to feel euphoria. I want to feel love. I want to feel heartbreak. Not only that, I want them to understand their heartbreak they are going through, understand the love they are going through, and understand you can do what you want to do in life.”

As much as A Piece Of The Geto is an intimate reflection of a budding personal and musical relationship between ZelooperZ and Shigeto, it more so shows that people from separate worlds experience all the same types of pleasure and pain, and can come together to express that through whatever they choose to do or create.