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Civil Interview: Zaytoven Talks Past and Upcoming Projects, Acting & More

Posted on September 15th, 2016
by
Staff Editor


So they finally freed Gucci! What’s it like having him back?

It’s just like old times! I was just on the phone with him. I still plotting on everyday things on what we’re gonna come up with and just work. It’s almost seems like we ain’t miss a beat. It was like he ain’t even go nowhere. Everything’s normal.

You have a bunch of work with a lot of different artists from Usher to OG Maco to Shy Glizzy. Who is someone you really want to get in the studio that you haven’t worked with yet?

Two people I could see myself doing music with would definitely be Rihanna and Beyonce. But I know it’s in the near future. I know it is.

Who are some people you vibe with really well that makes you excited to work with them?

Man…We named a lot of them already that I love working with. First of all, I love working with Gucci. I love working with Future. I love working with one of my new guys, Lil Uzi Vert. And Shy Glizzy is another one of my guys. Those are people you just click with, so those gotta be my top guys.

So you have to tell us what it was like working on Beast Mode with Future

For me, that was another redefining moment in my career. I had worked with Future from the beginning. I’m probably the only producer, to this day, that’s been on every Future mixtape from the first one to his last mixtape. I was there before the other producers were even around. So getting back in the studio and working with him on Beast Mode was amazing for me because when we did it, he came to me like ‘Zay, I wanna do a whole project with you. I want you to figure out whatever beats you want me to rap on and whatever music you want me to rap on for this tape, that’s what we gon’ do.’ He gave me the ability to open up and say ‘You gotta rap on all these tracks right here that got all these pianos and got a lot of melodies and stuff like that.’ So people can see my gift in a different light. They know I make trap music with Gucci, but they didn’t know how much I play the piano and how melodic I can be. That’s what Beast Mode did for me. It opened up people’s ears to listen to me in a different way.

 

When it comes onto up and coming artists, what do you look for that makes you say “I want to work with him”?

A lot of times if they’re not already lugged in or don’t have some type of following going, for me it’s more of looking for a certain “it” factor. It’s like that I can’t really put my finger on, but when I’m around them or when I hear them rap and listen to their music and how everything clicks’ that makes me say, ‘This guy right, I’d take time out my day to give him whatever beats he wants and record him all day.’

I wanna call it the “it” factor because I can’t really explain what it is. It just has to be a combination of things that just feel right to me.

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