Take flight with Arz as the Captain

From London's east hails rapper and songwriter Arz, an 18 year old artist who reached gold certification with 2021’s single Alone With You, winning over audiences with textured beats and thought-provoking vulnerability. Already kicking off this year with some huge singles, the most recent being a jumpy garage track titled Captain, there’s promise of a lot more to come from this young rising talent. 

With a polished and crisp sound, Captain demonstrates Arz’s ability to diversify his sound whilst maintaining the vibes and keeping it his own with sincere lyricism set to apt melodies. Coming from humble beginnings of looking up YouTube beats and spitting bars in cars with friends to upload on Instagram, Arz has his sights on the horizon - and plans to bring listeners along for the journey, sharing that “I’m working on a project! It’s been long awaited! There are a lot of different tracks on there, it’s intimate, it’s an episode of my life that allows people to get to know me, and how I came up”. 

To celebrate Captain’s release, we asked Arz a few questions to get to know him and the track a bit better. Be sure to lift your mood and press play on Captain below as you read a bit more about the young sensation. 

Tell us about your artist name, Arz?

This one is bad basic, it's probably going to be a little letdown. But It's literally because my real name starts with an R, and then I was backing and forthing and thought it would be cool to just spell out R so I called myself Arz. But my actual government name start with R, so yeah.

When did you first start spitting bars?

When I first started I was thirteen, I don't think I was spitting bars at 12. But 18 is when I really started spitting bars and I was just putting up freestyles on my Instagram. I asked my friend, let’s borrow your dad's just to record a video in, and they’d just go sit in the passenger side and get him to record me spit bars, put it up, and yeah, that's really where I started just spitting bars with a friend.

How’s the Grime scene in Manchester in 2022?

Manchester, I don’t know about Manchester. I'm from London, so I don't know about Manchester Grime. I want to know, but I know Grime in general is one of my favorites. Grime 140 BPM, just the bars really. If I had any genre to put myself in, if I had to I'd probably put myself in Grime because of the way I split, I guess. But I wouldn't know about the Manchester scene, the Grime scene in Manchester. I know the Grime scene’s massive and it's a big scene of production.

Tell us about your creative process - how does an Arz track come together?

I just sit there. I go into the studio, chill a bit, well normally I don't really like too many people in the studio with me, I like to have one or two friends in the studio. I ask the producer to play for a couple of beats, if I like one of them I sort of just loop it. I'll just walk around the room, I always walk around when I'm in the studio. I don’t really sit down, I pace up and down a room and I'm on my phone writing bars until the track’s done. So yeah, he’ll play a couple beats, if I hear one I'll ask him to loop it like leave it on replay, and I'll just sit there for like an hour or two to write depending on who I'm with and how I'm feeling and what not. And if I’m not feeling it then I'll be like yeah, let's just start fresh and we'll just sit there start a fresh beat and just work on it and then that will probably take a little bit more longer. But yeah, my process is quite simple. Actually. Quite simple.

Which producer would you love to jump on an instrumental from?

ATL Jacob. ALT Jacob 100%. 

Who is your dream MC collab?

Oooo. Probably Kano, Chip maybe. Kano or Chip. Yeah that's it.  

Tell us about your new single, Captain?

Captain. I made that the other month in Manchester with my boy LiTek. That's more of just a fun one, fun jumping garage vibes. Wrote it, recorded it, shot it in less than about 5 hours, it was a real quick turnover, it was really quick, we we're just feeling it in the day, and I was like, you know, let's just put it out because there's something a bit different, the sound. I haven't really got a lot of songs of that sound and that jumpy way, and especially a garage song like that. So I was like, let's just put it out, and I put it out.

The track came together in just 5 hours, how was that? 

We literally just played the beat. We made the first song and the first one we made is actually going to come out  next month. But Captain was the second one we made, and then we just played the beat and I was like nah, this is hard and it's different, It's like garage. I just laid my vocals on it and after we laid it, it was like nah this is hard let's just shoot it. So I asked one of the people there who was with jnb directors in Manchester and he was like yeah, he just came through and started shooting for us. We went to a few places around Manchester and then just wrapped it up. It was really quick, and we're like lets just let's just put it up, why not?

How was making the video the same night - did the vibes from the studio carry over?

Yeah 100%. It was vibey. We had quite a lot of people with us, but yeah we were vibing, everyone was just drinking up, vibing to the song, making music. It was dope.

What’s coming up for the second half of the year?

Loads more music, like loads loads loads more music. I feel that my supporters and the people that know me, they're gonna really appreciate what I have to bring now, and the direction I'm going in and the different types of sounds and feelings and topics that I'm talking about. I feel like that’s going to be appreciated so yeah, that's it just lots more music and a lot more elevation.

Who/what have you been listening to lately?

Lately okay lately like lately when you say lately I mean like the past day or two. I've listened to a lot of Jim Legacy, you might not know about Jim legacy, but there’s this artist in the UK called Jim legacy he's really really good. I’ve taken his album and I've just been cranking him out. You got to check him out he's really good. Another artist Bawo  I think that’s how you say his name B-a-w-o he's an artist from the UK . My playlist, I quite like my playlist. I just listen to so much things, I listen to so much different types of music so it's always changing. More recently I've just been listening to a lot of Soul, a lot of Brent as well. Jim legacy, Bawo, I’m always listening to YoungBoy, Gunna, Kodak. And me, I always listen to my own music (laughter) so yeah. 

Arz's new single Captain is out now via Virgin Music Australia. 

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