It is clear to see how confident he is in his ability, but it’s perhaps his bravery that is the most impressive thing about him in such an early stage of his career. Zakhar routinely crosses the lines between rapping and singing due to his talent in both genres, however, coming from a certain background – at a time where UK Rap and Drill is in such a healthy position – choosing to sing would definitely not have been an easy decision for the teenager. “When I first started singing guys were telling me Nah, Nah, don’t do the singing ting, do the rapping ting, only certain man can sing,” he recalls, “but now that I’m starting to grow and things, it’s the same guys that are telling me I’m hard and stuff.”
His reluctance to listen to those people around him and go against the grain he felt society imposed on him has proved to be the best choice he could have made. Deciding between rapping and singing wasn’t the only dilemma Zakhar had to tackle, he hit a crossroads at 16 which saw him have to choose between his two loves, football and music.
“The more I played football, with the repetitive schedule I had when I was at Brentford, I realised I didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I did. It’s everyone’s childhood dream till you’re actually doing it type thing” he explains, “and these times I’d just started doing music, so I preferred writing at my boy Swiftz’s yard over going to training and things.”
A big factor in Zakhar’s rise through the ranks was his social media freestyles, mainly the snippets and duets he posted on TikTok. His first public video singing was an open verse challenge to Sadie Jean’s single ‘WYD Now?’, today the duet sits on just under nine million views. The success of that video led to an official remix being released which has amassed over four million Spotify streams. Seeing the reception to his talent from TikTok convinced him there was a place in the music industry for him and further solidified his belief in the decision to sing.
Ever since, Zakhar hasn’t looked back with continuous single releases in; ‘Never Hiding’, ‘Fly Away’, ‘DND’, and ‘Better Things’. For someone so young, the way he has flexed his creativity and versatility just goes to show he’s really in his bag and just warming up for his debut body of work.
Labelling him as an artist with ‘potential’ almost feels like a disservice to his talent, however, the sky is the limit for Zakhar, and it is only a matter of time before his sound is at the forefront of the music game.
To explore the journey through his early career and gain insight into his vision for the future, we sat down with Zakhar.
Growing up, who were you listening to?
I was a One Direction guy, real shit, I’m not even going to lie to you. I had this old cd player that was passed down generations and it only used to work with headphones. I was banging JLS, Justin Bieber, bare guys. It was only when I got exposed to like the ends that I started listening to Rap and stuff.
Who is someone that’s inspired you on this journey so far?
My older brother inspires man to do better bro. He’s a producer init and he just wakes up and is making beats already, it’s like 9 am and he’s working. Even on his breaks, he’s just making beats, so yeah, he’s lit man.
Why did you first start doing those Instagram freestyles?
I must have been in year nine or ten when I did my first like music freestyle. A girl broke my heart init and these times the mandem were always slapping on beats and I sorta knew I could rap a little bit, so I thought why don’t I just do a freestyle for the gram.
Talk me through the decision to do the open verse challenge on TikTok.
I was so scared bro. I recorded the video in the booth, I didn’t want anyone to hear it. Nobody knew at the time that I did it because it was my first time doing proper singing. So, I had my air pods in, but they must have bugged out and disconnected, then Swiftz heard it and was like what’s that bro? Obviously, I showed him, and he was just telling me it was hard, so I said fuck it and just posted it.
Did you imagine it would end up going viral?
Initially, I posted it, and it was on like 900 views so for my first TikTok video I was gassed, but my A&R called and said I uploaded it wrong, so I took it down and reposted it. These times eight hours had gone by, and I was only on like 18 views, I was too pissed off, but he was just telling me to be patient. Then suddenly, I just see it hit 10k and it kept going up, 20k, 30k, 50k. I was with my boys, and we were just thinking Nah it won’t hit 100k. I was like let’s play a game of FIFA and guess what number it’s on after we’re done. We were seeing 150k, I woke up the next morning to 300k and by the end of that night, it hit a mil. It was crazy.