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Music

Get to Know Lofty305 of Metro Zu

The weirdo Miami rapper explains his sudden pilgrimage to Europe, as well as why girls are like Pokémon.

Last year, Miami art-rap crew Metro Zu broke onto the scene with their strangely addicting album Mink Rug, then proceeded to spread their creative seed all over the place. The Raider Klan-affiliated group consists of brothers Ruben Slikk and Lofty305, beatmaker Poshstronaut, and lead visual artist Freebase; their music is what I imagine SpaceGhostPurrp would sound like if he went to art school and ate lots and lots of mushrooms. After I caught word of Metro Zu, I became increasingly fascinated by Lofty, whose ever-expanding catalog of solo work contains some of the weirdest and most touching music on the Internet. He raps well, but more often sings about sex, love, weed, and metaphysical shit with a spaced out, slightly nasal delivery that's enchanting in its imperfection. After painting a Lamborghini at Art Basel in December, Lofty abruptly tweeted his goodbyes and left Miami to travel around Europe with Freebase. I began to wonder if he was ever coming back, so I Skyped him in London to find out what was up.

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What are you up to today?
Smoking weed, just chilling, drawing, making music and shit.

Can you start out by telling me how Metro Zu got together?
Me and Slikk are brothers. He's older by one year. I met [Freebase] and Poshstronaut at school. My mom, my sister, my dad, my brother, and Poshstronaut were all living at Zu Mansion, and people would always sleep over, because we'd always be smoking late as fuck. Freebase basically lived there for a nice portion of the last four or five years.

What brings you to Europe?
You ever seen Pokémon? The world is filled with all different types of Pokémon, i.e. the ladies. There are all different types and shades and colors. Some of them look the same, like when you go to certain places, there's a certain look to the Pokémon there. So there's rare Pokemon. Basically, I'm trying to fill up my Pokédex out here.

What are girls like out there?
I don't know. I haven't fucked one yet. I can tell you I've wanted to cream pie about 20 girls I see a day.

Tell me your best pick-up line.
Shorty, you got the best smile I ever seen. I wanna lick your teeth.

Thanks! What about music? What are you working on?
I recorded two tapes in London. Ryan Hemsworth sent me the hardest track and I recorded it the first night I spent here. Me and Issue are doing an album together right now, I just sent him a few tracks the other day.

You put out a beautiful song called "Death Cumz" last year. What was it about?
I went to New York, and this girl I'd been talking to on the Internet came there too. I was like, I'll just meet her, whatever. We'll get into some cool shit and maybe I'll fuck. But then we met, we chilled, and I didn't fuck the first time. I started chilling with her for like a week straight and we didn't go anywhere without each other. I can't lie, we fell in love. A lot of people fucked with "Death Cumz" because it was a real-ass song, but it wasn't something you'd expect from me because I put out, like, "Sell Ma Ho" then came out with that. It just shows how people can grow within a year.

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Do you still talk to her?
No. She dipped back to LA or whatever. Previous to the whole situation, she told me she had another thing going on with another nigga. Me, obviously I didn't give a fuck, because I don't fall in love with girls like that. I'll always be like, “Oh, you got a boyfriend? Ha, it don't mean shit to me.” I’ve never had a girlfriend. But obviously this was not any girl, so as it turned out, I fell in love and started making all this hard-ass music, all heartbroken that I couldn't be with this girl. It was my first time being in love and it was intense, so I created a song. To this day, I still make songs about her. She's very inspiring.

I saw some collage art you made using Nickelodeon magazines. Where did you get those?
(In Miami) there's this dude called Eddie and he rides around mad strapped. He has all the straps and all the Nickelodeon magazines. He came through and just dropped them off and was like, I know you need these. I was going through a crazy time in that Nickelodeon magazine collage era.

What's your favorite Nickelodeon show?
Ahh!!! Real Monsters, fool. It had all the different monsters for days. They kept coming with the new students in the damn school and I'd be like, I wanna go to that school. School was boring as fuck to me, but it was like, if I went to that school I'd be so happy.

When are you coming back to the States?
The States?

Like, the United States.
Oh, so you mean West Realm. I don't know. I don't really plan these things. I'm thinking about London right now. I'm here to cream pie the city, no disrespect. London is such a deep, historical city. If it was a woman, it would be a beautiful, sexy cougar. America would be like a 24-year-old who knows how to suck a good dick, just got her job that she's gonna have for a while and is starting to save money and get her shit together. London is the church, the parliament. We're gonna come back to the States in February, though. We've got a show in L.A.

Where have you been besides London?
Paris. I love Paris but I still ain't fucked, so I don't know if it's real or not. The craziest shit that happened in Paris is I met Breakbot and he said he liked my music. I also went to the airport in Russia. There were birds in the airport. I'm going to Berlin, too.

I was gonna say you should go to Italy.
I was gonna say you shouldn't tell me what to do.

Sorry.
I'm just kidding. You're mad nice, I'm not gonna be an asshole to you. I just thought that would be good for the interview, though, for you to put that in there. I didn't mean it. Will you marry me? Cause I want you to have my babies.

Frances Capell is an Internet troll and writer living in her bedroom in Brooklyn. She tweets - @ffffrances