The Break Presents – PlayThatBoiZay
PlayThatBoiZay got into rapping in 2017, only because his friends continuously badgered him to do it. The Miami-bred rapper spent his childhood freestyling with his friends, but as those bars began to develop, he was encouraged by the people around him to take rapping seriously.
The biggest cosign came when he first met fellow Miami native Denzel Curry, who has since become Zay’s most influential supporter. The two Carol City High School classmates met randomly when Zay was working at a local Cheesecake Factory back in 2015. Like all Zay’s friends before Curry, the latter also implored Zay to consider taking up rap. When Zay finally did in 2019, Curry gave him his first serious buzz by putting him on “P.A.T.”, the closer to Denzel’s 2019 project, Zuu.
PlayThatBoiZay’s buzz has now taken on a life of its own, thanks to the release of his track “Hoodlumz” featuring A$AP Rocky, and of course, Denzel Curry. Hot off the drop of his latest album VIP, Zay stops by The Break to share a few more details about how he got into rapping, his standout moments to date and his goal in hip-hop.
Instagram: @playthatboizay
TikTok: @vipzay
I got into rapping by: “People just kept telling me I had a voice for it. I ain’t never wanna rap, I like freestyling. I feel like everybody freestyle for fun and I just do it and people kept telling me I had a voice for it. Even Denzel, before I even made music, he told me himself like, ‘Yo, do you rap?’ I was like, ‘Nah’ and he was like, ‘Aye, bro, you should rap!’ When Denzel said it, I was like, damn, I probably should.”
Currently working on: “I got a deluxe completed for VIP to finish off the year. But 2025, I’m going to be flooding the streets. No more holding back!”
My standout moments to date have been: “‘P.A.T.,’ [Denzel Curry’s song I was featured on in 2019], definitely shifted, because before I started working in Los Angeles, I was doing my own thing, underground, and it was definitely working and stuff. But as an artist, I feel like the hardest thing to do is to get people to take you serious. That’s the hardest thing for any artist. I felt like ‘P.A.T.’, when I released ‘P.A.T.’ Denzel definitely helped take me more serious. Then I went on tour in 2019, and that was another little standout moment for me because that’s how I was able to make [Nocturnal] and that kinda set up everything I needed to be able to make VIP.”
My goal in hip-hop is: “I just like to create. I wanna inspire people to boldly create, yeah, just create without no restrictions. I want to be that. I want people to look at what I’ve done and instill the inspiration to create without like, yeah, ‘F**k what everybody think.'”
Standouts:
“Hoodlumz” featuring Denzel Curry and A$AP Rocky
“Poison Klain” featuring Denzel Curry and Anonymuz
“Swarm”
VIP