Keep Going, Zack Fox!
Zack Fox popped back up for me about a month and a half ago when this tweet was shared with me. A couple weeks later I watched his Hot Ones Versus episode with Thundercat. He’s back once again after this tweet was shared with me. The full DJ set was soon thereafter recommended to me on YouTube. Zack Fox is at the perfect of level of fame and notoriety to me. It feels like I won’t hear a peep from him for 3-6 months, and then he’ll pop up again and I’ll think “oh shxt, I forgot that he’s one of my favorite humans on earth”. He acts, illustrates, raps, writes, does stand-up. He’s the sort of multi-hyphenate, infinitely talented creator that is perfectly crafted for today’s internet. But it’s not in the Tik Tok or reality show sort of way. It’s in the legitimately talented, your favorite artist’s favorite artist sort of way. It’s in the every thing he tweets is DM-able, all the content he makes is delightfully consumable, and “we don’t deserve him” sort of way.
These days, Zack is doing legitimately good DJ work, at least to my half-trained eyes and ears. He’s DJing and doing stand-up all over the place this summer, as you can see on his website, which is hilariously just a Google Sheet. Perhaps most notably to me because of proximity, he’s performing at the New York Boiler Room show (which has now become a 2-day event, I guess). I won’t be going this year, barring some sort of ticketing miracle, but I went last year and had a whirlwind of a good time sans-Fox. He’s doing a show at the cozy Underground Arts venue in Philly the night before, which is a third of the price and more desirable these days for sleepy E. Who wants to go with me???
Bounce your House head for an hour to Zack Fox’s pleasant Elevator Music DJ set, which was mentioned above. I hadn’t heard of this channel before the “Meet the Grahams” edit gained traction on Twitter. That’s probably the most evocative moment of the set, apart from when a bouncer ejects a spectator while a house remix of Playboi Carti’s “Location" crescendos at the 40:42 mark. These sort of recorded, live DJ performances like Elevator Music were popularized in the COVID era, and thankfully they’ve stuck around. Some of my favorites being The Lot Radio, which occasionally gets splashy guests, and I’ve even been guilty of watching this extremely-cringey-but-cute couple that cooks and plays music vibily. I suspect that the Elevator Music guests will skyrocket in notoriety after this video blew up a bit. Zack’s set is now their most-viewed video after just 4 days.
The top YouTube comment from the Elevator Music video was on point like a pyramid: “Legit knew Zack's dj sets was gon be top notch ever since he started to dress like a underground rave DJ with all this Men's Warehouse shit he been throwing on”. Yup. He’s in a full Metalwood Studio fit in said video, which I think I like. I have indeed seen the brand around NYC more recently, seemingly in good taste. I fear that Metalwood will become West (East?) Village-ified, but I’ll let it breathe for a minute before I pass any judgement. I’m happy to discover that I don’t even know what to google to find out who makes those hats, so I can’t find them. You know the ones. I do know that the Throwing Fits boyz have been rocking with Metalwood Studio for several years now. They had Zack Fox on an episode of the podcast in 2021, so it’s not surprising to see him joining in on the Metalwood goodness.
I noticed Zack’s style recently when I watched him and Thundercat do what feels like the hundredth iteration of a Hot Ones spin-off episode, in which they’re as properly weird and hilarious as you’d expect. I love his glasses and that Koreatown Running Club hat he’s wearing. I also love this $50 t-shirt from their website. What is it with running clubs and running brands making their merch prohibitively expensive? (Good luck getting into the Bandit website, it’s impossibly slow for me. I do see that many of their shirts are sold out, so the jokes on us!) The whole Hot Ones schtick is pretty exhausted to me at this point, but a good guest will always be a good guest.
Zack Fox still has the best “The Cave” episode, which is a YouTube series hosted by producer Kenny Beats where Kenny cooks up a quick beat and a guest raps a half-written, sometimes-serious verse over it. That video was my first exposure to Zack, as far as I can remember. Zack’s rendition was so good that it was made into a legitimately listenable song called “Jesus is the One (I Got Depression)”. It’s equal parts funny and bar-y. “It’s the trap game’s Abraham Lincoln, four score and sixteen bars ago” is maybe the only SFW line that I’m willing to quote here, and he says that before he even starts rapping. I can’t believe that video/song is over 5 years old!!!!
This is the part where I say “never change, Zack”. But no, it’s not true! I want him to continue evolving and going wherever his creative and hilarious heart/mind takes him, as long as he continues to share it with us. Thanks, Zack!
Alright, thanks for reading. Peace.
-Ethan