Fashion callouts aren't exactly rare in the hip-hop world. Still, there's something remarkable about the fact that the first line of the first single from the Flatbush Zombies' debut album is a reference to Saint Laurent. "YSL pants with the zippers, yikes," spits Meechy Darko in the opening of "Bounce," dropping a Bathing Ape callout a moment later. For a band so often pigeonholed as "drug rap," these guys know their shit when it comes to style.
That's not to say that 3001: A Laced Odyssey doesn't possess its share of talk about psychotropic substances; it does. But dismissing Meechy and his cohorts, Zombie Juice and Erick "The Architect" Elliott, as acid-obsessed dudes from Brooklyn is to do them a disservice—and yourself. Produced by Elliott, the album is a lush, layered piece of art bolstered by skillful wordplay from each lyricist. Walking a fine line between darkness and light, it's a very strong follow-up to the mixtapes it follows: 2012's D.R.U.G.S. and 2013's Better Off Dead (not to mention Clockwork Indigo, made in collaboration with fellow Brooklynites The Underachievers).
Flatbush Zombies are currently in the midst of world tour to support 3001. They performed "Bounce" on The Tonight Show last week and recently wrapped up a sold-out, two-night homecoming stand at New York's Webster Hall. But before that whole whirlwind of activity kicked off, we sat down with the guys to talk about their music, how the group has grown in the last three years, and why they dig everything from designer fashion to flannel shirts from Sears.
Esquire.com: This is a big moment for you guys. You've done two mixtapes, but 3001: A Laced Odyssey is your first proper album. How's it feel to have it out?
Erick "The Architect" Elliott: It's an honor, man. It's amazing we got this far from just releasing our music for free. And now we finally get to be part of—not the industry, but the real deal. We never really recouped any money from selling music. Now we're kind of entering that world, seeing residuals and paperwork and shit like that.
Meechy Darko: You also get to see statistics, so you get to know how well your fans actually support you. I guess that scientific boring shit is cool also, to actually know.
Zombie Juice: It's good to be official.
MD: It's good to also know that your fans really love you and will support you. Some people hadn't even heard the album yet but they were buying it [on preorder]. I've never bought anything I haven't seen or heard before.
Do you think that's because you generated that anticipation?
MD: Oh, hell yeah. It's been a long time. How long did we let them wait?
ZJ: 2012.
MD: That's a while. I'm surprised they still like us.
Do you think your sound changed?
EE: I think as rappers, for sure. As a producer, for sure. We're more of a team than ever. It's more cohesive. All of the songs sound like they're supposed to. There's no hiccups.
How did you conceive the title, 3001: A Laced Odyssey?
MD: Stanley Kubrick. 2001: A Space Odyssey is one of the best films ever made. It was ahead of its time, and this is ahead of its time. Our last project was Clockwork Indigo, which we did with Underachievers. That was themed off a Stanley Kubrick film, A Clockwork Orange. And if I can keep figuring out other ways to flip his movies, I'll continue to do it. I like to pay homage.
ZJ: Even like he said, our album is ahead of its time just like the movie how they had iPads and all sorts of weird freakin' things that we use now. So it's ahead of its time.
MD: And we're ahead of our time. It's pretty simple.
The songs have a much fuller, lush production than a lot of hip-hop out there right now. It's a little bit of a callback to some '90s sounds, but feels especially distinctive right now.
EE: Yeah. For me, I don't like being compared to other people. I don't like doing what other people do. If you're a producer, you have to have a sound. Even if you don't like my sound, you have to at least come to me for that. You've got people like Terry Richardson or Elliott Erwitt or Annie Leibovitz—they have a particular style of photography. And if you don't like it, then that's cool. But at least if you like this particular thing, you're going to go investigate. And I think for producing, it's the same. Even if you don't think it's Top 10 radio stuff, at least it's different and unique and it's ours. We own that sound.
I know you guys get lumped in with this whole drug/music connection. Do you think that's overstated? Do you ever feel pigeonholed by that?
MD: Yeah. When we released our second mixtape, Better Off Dead, the first thing people were saying was, "Flatbush Zombies are back with another druggie project–blah, blah, blah." And they never even listened. Because if they really listened to the project, they'd know that I mentioned one drug within the first seven songs. So yeah: I do feel like we get pigeonholed, but everyone is pigeonholed and put into a box. So you just gotta box your way out of the box.
ZJ: Those people don't even know what they're talking about. They just want to talk the talk. For example, Meech didn't smoke for three months making [3001: A Laced Odyssey]. And people are going to listen to the CD and be like, "Man, Meech was so fuckin' high when he wrote this one, huh?" Little do you know…You don't even know everything, you just think you know.
MD: But you can use that to your power also. A lot of people do it. I watch rappers do it every day. People think you're rich? You're gonna act rich. I just don't have fun lying. That's all. I want to listen to my music and be like, "Wow, I actually did that." I'd feel lame performing on stage and it's like, "I know I never took LSD, but I'm saying 'LSD, LSD, LSD.'" Like a lot of rappers.
EE: It didn't make the album, but we recorded a song and Juice said, "If we didn't say acid, this rap shit would be a classic." It's the same, I feel like, with certain people. I just think a lot of people are scared to listen to us because there's this stigma, this weird idea that we worship the devil or are obsessed with darkness. We just want the juxtaposition of having happiness and darkness. You don't have to pigeonhole us and say we're just dark rappers or horrorcore and all this shit. It's like, yo: It's just a type of music.
MD: You don't have nightmares? You don't think bad things? Everything you think is positive? It isn't that way.
ZJ: We just cover all the emotions that we all have. You get light, dark—it's a balance.
Just creating tension.
ZJ: You heard the album. Don't you think there's a balance?
I do, yeah. That horrorcore thing…
EE: It's not relevant. That's what I'm saying.
Not to shift gears too violently, but I want to talk a little bit about style. Who do you look to? Do you have specific influences?
ZJ: I mean, shit man. All of us, we're wearing the same shit we've always been wearing. We've been collecting Air Jordans since we were young. I think that's where it started for me, collecting sneakers. And from there I started buying clothes. I like Supreme a lot. Unfortunately I don't get anything free.
Do you line up?
ZJ: I mean, I have in the past. Back in the day. We've been collecting for a long time. That's the main stuff that I wear: Supreme and A.P.C. and Saint Laurent. I like to wear tie-dye shit, and I like to express myself through my hair the most. That's my favorite part.
I'd never have guessed.
ZJ: [Laughs]
EE: Pretty much the same. We started collecting sneakers and that's how I got into fashion and stuff like that. I think my style is either super plain or ridiculous. So, like, The Real McCoys–I love everything they do. Plain T-shirts that to a person who has no fashion sense probably looks like "whatever." But to someone who has style it's like, "Damn. I don't know how much it cost but that's a nice shirt." I like that. I don't like necessarily wearing something that doesn't fit my personality. I'm just a chill dude, so I want to wear stuff that's comfortable and that I think represents my personality. Since I grew my hair, I wear headbands all the time. So I'm looking for headbands.
ZJ: And I just wanted to say what he said: If you're not comfortable in what you're wearing, you shouldn't be wearing it. That's the biggest mistake ever.
MD: I guess my influence is New York City and the people around me. My favorite brands? Supreme. Our brand is cool; I like to wear our brand a lot. I like to wear Saint Laurent, it's probably my favorite brand, but now that my favorite guy [Hedi Slimane] isn't there the clothes are going to change up a little bit. I'm a little depressed now because I don't know where I'm going to go or what I'm going to do.
He'll pop up again soon, I bet.
MD: Yeah, but I'm trying to go broke right now. But also, you know, Bathing Ape. I love Bathing Ape. We did a collaboration with them last year, and that was beautiful because we used to line up in front of that store, saving up all my money to try to buy a hoodie. And now we actually have a hoodie with them. I just like anything. It doesn't have to be a specific brand. If it looks nice, I don't care. We could go to Sears and I could find something. I like flannels, old rock shirts, vintage T-shirts and everything. They're just so old that you can't wear them. I bought one the other day and I sneezed and that shit just ripped apart.
ZJ: [Singing] I'm gonna pop some tags.
MD: Shout out to Macklemore. [Laughs] Bad advice you gave me, buddy.
Sneakers seem to be really central to how you guys got into fashion.
MD: Oh, yeah man! Fun fact—I love telling this story: I used to steal sneakers. I worked at Foot Locker on Flatbush Avenue. It's not there anymore, so they can't come for me. At first, me and Erick worked there together. It was me, Erick, my man Peterson that lived upstairs from me, my man Steph across the street, and my man Ben. All from the same block. Peterson was the manager, and eventually I got comfortable and figured out how to steal things. I used to sell sneakers and collect my Jordans. When I was in high school, I had a collection of 200 sneakers and I didn't have $200 in my pocket.
ZJ: Dead ass. Before we started moving love, we were selling sneakers. I was selling sneakers to make a living, literally. I was buying them from eBay and buying shit where people didn't know that it was a really rare Air Raid from '94 or something. And then if it was a little fucked up I'd clean it, and put a little piece of paper with my name on it next to it to prove it was me, and then I'd just sell it and make double or triple the money sometimes.
You were flipping sneakers.
MD: We were boosters.
Was it that same impulse—knowing which sneakers were rare or special when other people might not—that led to you to get into fashion? Saint Laurent and Nike are very different companies, so how do you go from one to the other?
MD: Comfort and quality. We really like quality. No disrespect to Jordan Brand, but I'd rather have the '80s Jordans 1s on my feet than the new ones because of quality. I bought this [Saint Laurent] jacket because it was quality. I can go get a jacket from the Army Navy store and it's going to look the same, but if I'm in a snowstorm or I fall off my motorcycle, is it going to look the same after that? I think we like to pay for quality. Some people need to understand that big brands don't always have quality. Because if you look at Barneys or other places where stuff is going 70 percent off, that's because it's not quality. Don't just buy it because it says Givenchy on the front, because that doesn't necessarily mean it's good. No disrespect to Givenchy, though.
But what you're saying is: Don't just look at the label.
MD: It's not just about the label.
EE: I remember when we were first trying to get into it, you had to find the best. So Jordans are cool, but you need to wear jeans too. You're not just going to be pant-less. So which jeans are you going to wear? Well, I can only afford $150 jeans, but at period in time…
MD: Go to A.P.C.
EE: I went to A.P.C.
MD: We wanted the Dior back then.
EE: But we went for A.P.C. We knew what it was. So you climb that ladder. But the foundation of it came from sneakers. You start from the bottom up. At least for me.
ZJ: Yeah, bottom up.
EE: It wasn't like I had a fire jacket and trash shoes. The shoes were cool and I wanted to buy a really cool pair of jeans. [To Meechy:] The first pair of Saint Laurents you bought was what, two years ago?
MD: Whenever we started making a little more money.
ZJ: We were finally able to afford the shit we want. Even these shoes on my feet, I wanted them since I was a teenager. I was finally able to find them and had enough money to get them. It's about meaningful items.
MD: It's not all expensive. I'll go on eBay right now and type in "American Psycho shirt XL vintage" and that shirt can go for $400 or $2, but I want it. Doesn't really matter how much it's going for. A lot of the stuff we want to get is nostalgic or reminiscent of something.
ZJ: Cross Colors. [Laughs]
That high-low style is so much more baked into the way we dress now.
MD: You gotta mix it up, man. You look crazy when you look like you're trying so hard. And if you are trying hard, that's fine. But you don't want to look like you're trying hard when you're not. That's just the worst. Throw on a cheap shirt; it's fine.
