Zoomo’s sweet sample-based loops have been on my radar since Sunday Holiday, his 2019 collaborative album with YL. Raised in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, a town best known as a college basketball battleground, he built a relationship with New York rappers YL and Starker, who were drawn in by his beats’ soft, chill style. As a trio, Zoomo, YL, and Starker released RRR: The Album at the end of last year, filled with instrumentals that range from dreamy to dusty. I’m particularly fond of In Memory Of, Zoomo’s wistful 2022 joint album with YL, where he samples the kind of old soul you might find in crime flicks like A Bronx Tale. From his current home in Bed-Stuy, Brooklyn, Zoomo hopped on the phone to tell me about four beats that shaped him as a producer. - Pitchfork ‘23 "YL’s personal, stream-of-consciousness raps are composed of the small and inconsequential moments that make life in New York City special: eating at the Dominican spot on the corner with the good breakfast, subway rides from Broadway to Bushwick, the little feeling of relief as the NYPD van doesn’t notice the smoke that you just exhaled. Born Again, the NYC rapper’s second collaborative album with the producer Zoomo, feels like you’re aimlessly drifting through the city by his side, seeing what he sees." - Pitchfork ‘20 How do you make a 20-track project digestible for a wide swathe of listeners in an era of short attention spans? In rapper YL and producer Zoomo’s case, you compile shotgun doses of slick lyricism, and put them over one of the best suites of soul samples we’ve heard in recent memory. The two have nearly symbiotic chemistry, as In Memory Of demonstrates. - Complex ‘22 On the standout “Away Game,” she takes on two different Zoomo beats with ease. Her flow is near breathless on the first, and on the second, she’s brimming with confidence and aggression. It’s strictly bars over here. - The Fader ‘22 SNS x GIANI Aimé Leon Dore SNS X REEBOK HIGHSNOBIETY X PUMA
