Photographer: Lena Nguyen
In the half-decade I’ve spent working in the underground hip hop space, the one artist I’ve engaged with who consistently stands out to me as not only incredibly thoughtful in his craft, but also genuinely human is ezcodylee. I had the opportunity to sit down with the STUNT 4 LIFE rapper after Allure’s New York Fashion Week runway to catch up on how his career and artistic drive have evolved since I last connected with him on the cover art for DEADMAN ! with Lucy Bedroque.
Colton Fairbairn: For those not familiar with you or your work, what is the essential information as to who ezcodylee is as an artist and as a person?
ezcodylee: Honestly, I try to stay as human as possible. That’s the best way I feel like I can describe myself. I try to think of others without viewing myself as some type of savior or saint or angel to this world; I’m just another person trying to make change.
CF: What does ‘Stunt’ mean to you?
EZ: Stunt means to live, cause I feel like for a lot of my life I was just surviving, and taking stunt on as a mantra helped me not only for myself but to express to others what living on the edge and really feeling alive should be compared to, you know, just being alive.
CF: Who are your biggest influences when it comes to both music and fashion?
EZ: That’s a great question. I feel like a lot of the sh*t that I do wouldn’t be possible if it wasn’t for Carti, Wayne, X, Scarlxrd, Lancey Foux, but when it comes to fashion, I honestly try to breathe my environment, like a lot of the stuff that I wear is just a reflection of what I believe and what I’m around. I really like to mainly just dress in what my friends make and keep that DIY feel to what I’m representing because we’re all kind of walking advertisements; I want to make sure that I’m advertising something that I actually care about.
CF: What went into getting connected with Allure New York to make this event possible today?
EZ: Me and Colin are really close friends; he does such great work, so much attention to detail with his brand, and is trying to build a true community through fashion. It’s always fun to work with him because I feel like he’s almost like the clothing equivalent to what I’m doing.
CF: Your career has experienced immense growth in the past year that directly parallels the growth of frequent collaborators like Prettifun, Slayr, and Lucy Bedroque. How important is it to you to surround yourself with like-minded creatives all striving towards the same goal?
EZ: It’s amazing, it’s beautiful to be able to do it the way that we are. I started making music like right before high school, and I really felt like everyone around me never really understood it or was into it as I was, and if they were it was never in the same spaces of music that I listed to, so to now be surrounded by a bunch of friends that truly get what I’m trying to, but also I can truly get what they’re trying to do while still being unique to our individual selves, and for their to actually be backing and momentum behind it is like surreal, because we’ve been doing this for years before it actually mattered to people. For all of our names to be synonymous is such a blessing.
CF: That’s cool to hear because I feel like that almost directly mimics my experience with where I was in high school pushing it. I’ve been doing this since I was 14, and it’s finally picking up as I’ve gotten the opportunity to work with amazing creatives like Snatched Magazine’s team.
EZ: Yessir.
CF: What’s the best advice you have for other young, aspiring creatives?
EZ: To find yourself. Everybody tells you to be yourself, but that’s such a hard task when you don’t know who you are. My best advice is to tune out the noise, find yourself, don’t be scared to get into different interests, whether that be niche or mainstream, take in everything you can so you can be the breath of what you indulge in. Allow yourself to enjoy things because your art should essentially be a melting pot of everything that ever made you go ‘wow’.
CF: Thank you very much for taking the time; we appreciate you.
EZ: Of course.
