Music Week – Music Week

Arz’s big-hearted UK rap music has made a big impression throughout 2021, and the London MC is a teenager on the rise. Music Week meets him to find out why emotions always come first…

When Rome Myers picks up the phone to Music Week in his bedroom on a cold, clear morning, he confides that the place is rather untidy.

“My room’s a mess, man, the past few days have been mad busy, so I’m just cleaning up,” he says. “There are clothes everywhere and I’ve got like five water bottles half filled up, I don’t understand why I do that. There’s bare stuff around the room.”

So far, his impression of teenage life seems pretty typical, but when you discover that the clothes cluttering his room are in fact carefully planned outfits for a trip to Los Angeles to write and record new music, it becomes clear that Myers isn’t quite living the life most 17-year-olds do.

We meet him at the end of a year during which his entire life has changed. In December 2020, he dropped out of college, abandoning interests in law to make music full-time as Arz, the rap alias he settled on soon after he started writing lyrics and recording videos with his mates in North East London a few years back. Eagle-eyed fans might recognise him from a cameo in Krept & Konan’s Ban Drill video, while his self-released debut EP, Love Letters, came out in April this year, catching the ear of revered UK exec and EGA Music president Colin Batsa, who quickly offered a deal.

Then came current single Alone With You, which samples Billie Eilish’s Hostage and provided the first viral moment for Arz’s emotive brand of rap. The track hit No.25 in the UK and has 167,444 sales to date, according to the Official Charts Company. On Spotify, where Arz has almost two million monthly listeners, it has 31,500,114 plays.

“The past few months have been the busiest time of my life, but it’s sick,” he says. “I’m rolling around doing what I love with all my closest people.”

 

I’ve always tried to come with something refreshing, I’m never gonna do it the same as other people

Arz

 

Arz lives in East London with his sister, who is also part of his management team at Power In Numbers and now has a role at EGA Music alongside Batsa. The rapper, who has only played two gigs to date, admits he’s still learning about the music industry, but it’s clear that he knows he’s found the perfect mentor in Batsa, who has recently steered D-Block Europe …….

Source: http://www.musicweek.com/radar/read/on-the-radar-arz/084890