South Florida’s Rzu, is a man and a multi-tiered creative who exists within a permanence of boundlessness and artistic flourishment. Rapper – check. Producer – check. Filmmaker, singer, social activist – check, check, and check. In a musical era come to be defined by artists who refuse to be labeled simply so, Rzu is perhaps the most consistently unpredictable and to it, perhaps the most accurate living example of what it means to be an artist in 2018. 

 

His newest release, a rock-inspired construct built of catchy guitar riffs and his signature muffled, undertone vocal approach is titled Ways and brings to memory a clean blending between an early Cudi alternative spectrum and a mid-00’s pop punk scene. In fact, its styling would fit right between Cudi’s She Came Along and any of The Neighbourhood’s more modern, up-tempo productions. 

 

At a time when the meshing of hip-hop and alternative / punk is reaching new heights daily, Ways is still bold and experimental even by the virtues of Rzu’s transcendentalism. Yet, it works. Seamlessly sliding into the wide breadth of his canon’s stylistic reach which has historically leaned closer to untraditional hip-hop, Ways is equal parts fun-loving and bubbly, bold, experimental, and innovative, proving once again that Rzu is even more varied, wide-ranging, and indefinable than we thought.