Who Is Flatbush Zombies?

The Brooklyn crew comprised of Meechy Darko, Zombie Juice, and Erick Arc Elliott made their Internet debut as Flatbush Zombies with a video that celebrated two of their favorite things: weed and waffles. The duo flashed gold fangs at the camera, smoked L’s like its legal, and ate waffles next to Sour Diesel nuggets.

Next came a viral spark that got the attention of hip-hop blogs and a few major labels, but it didn’t stop there. After a string of trippy videos for “S.C.O.S.A.”and “Face-Off (L.S. Darko),” Flatbush Zombies released their first full-length mixtape,D.R.U.G.S., last week. From Kilo Kish's magnetic appearance on “JupiterSound” to the syrupy, smoked-out “Laker Paper,” D.R.U.G.S. is every bit a strange smoker’s album as it is an introduction to the left-field collective.

On the heels of spitting fiery verses on A$AP Mob’s “Bath Salt,” we decided it was time to find out Who Is Flatbush Zombies? During a visit to the Zombie Palace, the crew kept the weed in heavy rotation while they played quick rounds of NBA 2K12. As expected, rap talk was plentiful, but the conversation also drifted to the meaning of “zombie,” movie influences, “Thug Waffle” hate, and why they can’t stop wearing Supreme. Continue reading for a look at it all and a better understanding of who these rising rappers really are.

As told to Eric Diep (@E_Diep)

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Zombie Juice: “We never graduated high school. We kind of dropped out. We just stopped going. We went to different high schools. [I went] to Midwood High School and Pacific High School. It's a secondary alternative high school.”

Meech Darko: “I went to Medgar Evers High School. That school wasn’t the best school for me. I went. I was there.”

Juice: “My school was actually next to Central Booking. It’s literally connected to the same building.”

Meech: “My school wasn’t no Bookings and shit, but my school was small. When you out and a little outcast and shit, it's kind of hard to do what you do when you got a microscope on you.”

Erick Arc Elliott: “Me and Meech grew up on the same block. I’ve known him since we were four years old. Juice, I met him in high school. And we always chilled but then we started to make music eventually because of the fact that I was making beats and they would always be around. Meech would always freestyle. Juice would always do his shit. Eventually, we just recorded it. It kind of became to what it was.

“The fact that I’m Jamaican made growing up in Flatbush cool because culturally it was cool. We had people who were from the same place we were from. I had a lot of influence in my childhood. My style of music. Even the stuff I listen to. And just the fact that as a kid, you almost felt like everybody was a part of your family because it had that real organic homey feeling. They might not necessarily live on your block—they can just come through my basement. Take a piss in my bathroom and get food in my backyard. Come chill with my pops. That was the style. That’s how everybody was when we were younger.

“My school was on Coney Island Avenue. That wasn’t a terrible neighborhood. I guess technically it was still Flatbush. We were freshman in high school. You had dudes who were seniors that would come and pick on us all the time. To be honest, I didn’t get fucked with that much. But it was more like the environment was always there.”

Meech: “It was an aggressive environment. That’s all.”

Erick: “You had to always bring your guard. That’s probably how Brooklyn is in general. You always had to keep your eyes open. Anything can happen at any time.”

Erick: “My brother played Wu-Tang Clan’s “Protect Ya Neck” for me. I don’t know how old I was. He was like, ‘You are going to learn all these words of the first verse and I am not going to let you out of this room.’ If I didn’t say it he would punch me or he wouldn’t let me play video games. So I was like, “I smoke on the mic like smoking Joe Frazier/The hell raiser ...” and I learned it. Eventually I wanted to start writing my own shit because it was super cool and I knew [Inspector Deck's] verse so well and I wanted to write one too. That’s how I started that.

“And beats, my mother bought me a beat machine. She bought me a MV-8000. It was the Roland joint. I saw RZA have it. I was like, ‘Damn, I want to be like these guys. These are my idols.’ I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing for two years. I got kind of sad. I was like, ‘Damn, these other dudes bought this machine, why are they making hits and classic records?’ I didn’t know what the fuck I was doing. I really almost stopped. But it's kind of crazy that even still to this day these guys are like, ‘Yo, you are a producer.’ And I really didn’t accept that until like two years ago cause I was like, ‘Nah, I’m a rapper and I make beats.’

“If two years was the benchmark, I was always doing shit but I never sent it to nobody because it was whack. I didn’t really fuck with it. It wasn’t until I gained that confidence. That was the Flatbush Zombies shit. My solo shit. I was like, ‘Damn, this is good enough to send out.’ I didn’t really work with other artists. I never really wanted to. Now, I got the opportunity.”

Meech: “I always used to freestyle for fun. But Juice, I think it was two and a half years ago, Juice was on some sober shit. He had gotten sober. I guess bored out of his mind. He just started writing rhymes and it started making me write rhymes. And it made me take it a little more serious.”

Juice: “I quit pot for like four months when I was like 19 years old or some shit like that. I don’t really remember how old I am now. My birthday did just past. July 8. I’m a Cancer [Laughs.]

““I’m overload/I’m over gone/Time to get this paper on/Fetty, Mozzarelli/Modern day Fonzierelli.” Me and this guy we used to watch Happy Days DVDs and shit. That was one of the first rhymes I wrote based on one little experience that we had. “

Meech:“We made a song. It’s probably three years old and shit. The opening line was, “Ready to die, track 17. I’m suicidal/Ran out of Dutchies, so we used a paper out the Bible.” We would just do [rapping] for fun. Just rap amongst each other back and forth. It wasn’t really like, ‘Yo, let’s do this.’”

“There wasn’t no force, no pressure or no plan. It was like, ‘Yo, I’m rapping.’ It was an exercise. You and your friends smoke weed together. You and your friends ball together. We rap together.” - Meech

Juice: “Yeah, there wasn’t really any plan.”

Meech: “There wasn’t no force, no pressure or no plan. It was like, ‘Yo, I’m rapping.’ It was an exercise. You and your friends smoke weed together. You and your friends ball together. We rap together.”

Juice: “I remember the exact emotions we were going through at the time in music. People were dropping whack records. Bad music. We weren’t listening to nobody because everything was pretty shitty. We were just like, ‘Yo, let’s just make music for our friends and ourselves so we can listen to it and smoke to it.’ That was one of the emotions we were going through at that time. Years ago.”

Meech: “Our approach wasn’t really even having the mindstate of: ‘We gonna bring some new shit.’ Our approach was more like, ‘We are going to do what we want to do.’ There are no rules really to music.That’s pretty much what it is. We do what we feel. We rap about how we feel at the time. No two songs are going to be alike. Although you may hear us say that we smoke weed in this song compared to smoking weed in that song. I felt different when I wrote that before I wrote this.”

Meech: “I'm influenced by Notorious B.I.G. I’m influenced by all. B.I.G. Too $hort. I’m influenced by a lot of people, some of the people I am influenced by don’t have vocals. Jimi Hendrix. I can listen to that guy without his vocals to be honest. I don’t really need that shit. That’s just being 100 percent. That’s mostly who I am speaking of. But as far as hip-hop goes, Biggie, Busta Rhymes, Jay.

”One thing all those guys taught me is the best thing you can do when you make music is to be as in-tune with yourself as possible. Don’t try to be anything else but yourself. Biggie always rapped about the facts, the truth, and himself. He never really like fucked around and that’s what got him far. That’s really what I learned. I put it all out there. My mother would hear some shit and be like,’Damn.’ And she has to turn away and shit like that. It is what it is because that’s who I am. If I did some other shit, it wouldn’t be me.”

Juice: “First and foremost, probably Snoop Dogg. He’s probably one of the biggest influences ever. Snoop Dogg, Biggie Smalls. I even have a portrait of Biggie Smalls tattooed on me. Ill Bill. Bone Thugs. Easy E. Mac Dre. Thizz Nation. Those are some epic artists in music history. I used to listen to all that shit when I was a kid.

“My favorite album is Doggystyle by Snoop Dogg. Because he’s a fucking pimp, gangster, hustler, everything. It was so versatile. The flows were crazy. You never heard something like that ever during the time of rap. Snoop Dogg did some unbelievable shit. I still get shivers down my spine when I heard Snoop and Dre's “Nuthin' but a 'G' Thang.” That shit was awesome.”

Erick: “Portishead. Coldplay. Rick James. Etta James. I like a lot of old shit. ‘60s soul. Motown. Hip-hop obviously. It's just making beats a lot of times the sounds only to use were listening to Slick Rick or that old real boom boom bap kind of Eric B. and Rakim shit. I was always a fan of it but I wanted to leave that for the time that it was. So I try to listen to other genres of music to try and recreate what was present then and kind of make that the now. I hate when MCs or producers make something that sounds just like the 90s. I hate that shit. It’s not the '90s. It's 2012. You got to reinvent that.”

Meech. “You know who we forgot to name, man? Robert Kelly.”

Erick: “Oh God, yeah. The master. Definitely him. The list for that goes on.”

Meech:“My top movie in life right now? A Clockwork Orange is probably my favorite movie. And then I’d give it to Menace II Society because I’ve been watching that movie since I was a little lad. And then Disney’s Dumbo. That’s that trippy shit you ain’t know.

“I really like movies a lot. I try to take a lot from movies. Not just imagery-wise. But just influences period. Movies have a lot of great shit especially when you are under the influence of certain things. You try and pick up on some shit that you didn’t pick up on before. I feel like D.R.U.G.S. is pretty cinematic.”

Erick:. “I have to say when I am by myself and I make beats. I never have complete silence with just a beat on. I have something on television. Something on my computer screen. Even if the track is on mute, the fact that it’s there. I am creating a canvas for what I am watching. So if I am watching American History X or I am watching Ken Park. I wonder what type of songs-if I never heard the soundtrack of this movie-what would I create or what would he create to be that? That’s why I think movies are so important.”

Juice:“What’s one of my favorite movies? Juice [Laughs.]”

Meech: “It all depends though. You got the gory horror movies. You obviously always love those. Zombie movies at the top of the bracket. Return Of The Living Dead really changed my life. Evil Dead is a classic. They Live is a classic. We used to watch Return Of The Living Dead everyday. I don’t know why we were so drawn to it. Obviously the zombies.”

Juice: “A lot of funny parts. I like the one with the lady. What she say, man? ‘How does it feel to be dead?’

Meech: “‘Braains! Braains!’ That whole movie was just funny to me. I like the old school supernatural zombies that rises from the grave. Not that virus, swine flu niggas. I don’t really like that shit.”

Juice:“A zombie is many things. Smoke to you zombie. It could be, ‘I’m already dead. I’m not here physically.’ It could be a lot of things.”

Meech:“I’ll give you a reason why we are zombies. It's because we re-opened our fucking minds. We reawakened ourselves. Rebirth. That’s what it meant to us when it came down to the decision. ‘Yo, we are zombies.’ We are not saying we don’t have a pulse. I bleed blood. Just understand that you know when they say you die your life flashes before your eyes? You see everything. You learn the grand answer to the biggest question in the world. Pretty much we are saying that we been through that. Second phase. We are here now. We are zombies. That fucking other life is done. I am aware of what happened then. This is a new conscious.

Juice:“Death and reincarnation under God’s supervision.”

Meech: “You can take it many ways and that’s how I wanted it to be. I didn’t want it to be specific.”

Juice: “You have to find what it is.”

Meech:“Because that’s very unfair for someone to say, ‘This is what a zombie is.’ Let the fans decide what it is.”

Erick: “If you define what it is I think that makes it corny. It's what you perceive it as, but we have our own definition of what it is.”

Meech: “Free spirit and an open mind. You are a zombie.”

Meech: “We released songs one by one because if we didn’t do it this way then we probably wouldn’t be here. People have been telling us to drop a mixtape since a fucking year ago. If we dropped a mixtape a year ago, we probably wouldn't have this interview right now because we weren’t ready. We just weren’t ready. It’s about timing. Plan and order is cool. I love order. But sometimes, you just gotta follow fucking emotions and vibrations. ‘Yo, now it's the time to drop a song.’ Every time we did it like that, it worked. ‘Yo, let’s just do it like this.’ Now, it's time to drop this.”

Erick: “I think some people thought we were doing it purposely. There were no real plans.

Meech: "Most of the songs on the tape were done a long time ago. Year and a half. We were just building it to be a better song. What was the first song we recorded? “YBA”? First song for this tape was “YBA.”

Erick: "That shit was mad old."

Meech:“We were like, ‘Damn, this song is infectious.’ This chorus is infectious. Not saying we didn’t expect to make a song that good, but it was weird to kind of made a song we thought it was really good before we were ready for that. We were practicing for a sec. Really just having fun, which how good records come out. We started with that and we were like, ‘Alright, let’s try this again.’ We made “Laker Paper.” We like, ‘Damn, this song is fun as fuck.’

We are still not ready to release it though. All the songs we had we used to play it here. Just play amongst ourselves. No one knew these songs. We just made music for our friends and for ourselves. Once again no scheduling, really. Erick would hit us up. ‘Yo, I got this beat, “S.C.O.S.A.” I got this weird beat. I don’t know if you are going to like this shit.’ I listen to it. ‘Nah, I fuck with it. Imma rap on this.’

It’s really organic. That’s how we like to do it. “At first, we were thinking like, ‘We have to record like 35 songs to take out enough songs to make a good mixtape.’ And then it started to get to the point where everything we were recording was really good. We didn’t have much throwaway. We probably have four throwaways for recording from two years.”

Juice:“We made songs in between saying we didn’t want to use or still play to ourselves.”

It’s really organic. That’s how we like to do it. “At first, we were thinking like, ‘We have to record like 35 songs to take out enough songs to make a good mixtape.’ And then it started to get to the point where everything we were recording was really good. We didn’t have much throwaway. - Meech

Meech: “Face Off (L.S.Darko)" was not going to be on D.R.U.G.S. “Face Off” was a song that we just had. It was just chilling there and eventually just found it's way.

Erick: “That whole Miami shit happened. We didn’t release it because of the Miami shit.”

Juice: “People thought the song was made when the Miami shit happened. That song was made a few months ago before that happened. Six, seven months ago.”

Meech: “Damn this is how old it is. I rapped on Pusha T’s “My God” beat.”

Juice: “Oh yeah, not even a month ago. It was a year.”

Meech: “Whenever the “My God” instrumental came out, I wrote to the “My God” instrumental and spit on it. Then I just sit on that shit for mad long. ‘I don’t feel like releasing it since it's somebody else’s beat. Just let it be.’ This nigga Erick, ‘Yo, could you build a beat around this?’ He took the vocals, built a beat around it, had that and sat on that for five months. A nigga ate a nigga’s face in Miami. And there you go [Laughs.]

“Originally, it wasn’t even on that beat. It was on another song, he just built the beat around it. So however old that Pusha T song is, I was writing the verse to the beat before the beat was even out.

Meech: “I’m not trying to say I’m not grateful, but I still can’t really grasp it. It’s weird. I didn’t think it was going to be so infectious—pun intended. I really did not expect that. The way people react to it. When we perform, it’s just weird the way people react to that fucking song.

Erick: “We had to wait for [our manager] Phil to tell us it was hot. I didn’t even know. It was just a song we made that day.”

Meech: “I was like, ‘Yo, I like this shit a lot. I think niggas are going to fuck with it.’ But Juice hated it.”

Juice: [Laughs.] “I hated it. I was like, ‘Yo this is the worse.’”

Meech: “He was like, ‘Yo, Meech is fucking my life up right now. This whack song is about to come out [Laughs.] We are never going to make it.’”

Juice: I’m about to get “Thug Waffle” tatted on my forehead [Laughs.]

Erick: “The thing about that song-only thing I can say-is most rap music that comes out from Brooklyn doesn’t sound like that. It was just like a mindfuck. To me sonically, even the structure of the beat, the shit I used to make it was old. It was an old keyboard. They don’t make it anymore. I guess people were looking for nostalgic and this was something that was new and reminded them of something old.

Meech: It was called “Thug Pancake.” And then it was like, ‘Fuck that, pancakes suck.’

Juice: “I think we were eating waffles or something.”

Erick: “We wanted to eat that shit because it was mad early.”

Meech:“We were talking about Tupac though. I remember Tupac. I remember it being “Thug Pancake.” We were thinking of Tupac and breakfast. It must have been 4 in the morning. The beat was made. And we were talking about Tupac. I was like, ‘Yo, pancakes suck. Let’s make it waffles.’

Juice: “There was no direction for the video. We were in front of a brick wall. We smoke weed everyday. We were eating waffles. We’ve been wearing gold teeth since we were in junior high school. There’s no fucking direction. It’s just thug waffles!”

Meech:“That’s what it really was. That’s just displayed in that way. There was no full on scheme. No George Lucas planning and shit. ‘Yo, we got this location. I want to shoot this shit with mad waffles. Let’s just go bring ourselves.’ And that’s it. The video is simple as fuck and people love it. It’s really nothing but two men in front of a camera.”

Erick: “Eating waffles and smoking weed.”

Meech:“Unfortunately, with the genre of music we do, we can’t be full hip-hop. You have to be hip-hop/this.”

Erick: “It strips you of just being hip-hop.”

Meech: “Not every reggae artist that smokes is a weed reggae artist. 95 percent of the rappers who rap smoke weed.”

Juice: “It doesn't make sense. Even if they don’t rap about it, they do smoke weed.”

Erick: “I think that goes for artists period.”

Meech: “Of course, you can label it druggy music. It’s called D.R.U.G.S and we are talking about drugs.”

Juice: [Talks in a Jamaican accent] “Like the mon said earlier mon, we rap about what we do. We smoke weed yah?”

Meech:“If I flew planes, the shit would be called planes [Laughs.] It’s that serious. That’s what my life is about. But people are going to label that. I’m not going to let it really bother me because at the end of the day, we keep making music and showing people what we have to offer. They are going to understand that. I’m not going to rap about Sour Diesel for the rest of my life.”

Erick: “To me, I’ve always smoked weed. You just know I smoke weed now so you are going to label me as a weed man.”

Meech: “That shit is so annoying, bruh.”

Erick: “I’ve been smoking weed. I just feel like people will say, ‘Oh, it’s drug rap.’ If I get labeled as a drug producer, what is that?”

Meech: If there is a new genre now of drug rap then so be it. That’s not the intention.

Erick: “‘Yo, let’s make a drug anthem.’ You know what I mean? We were even worried about the tape not having “Thug Waffle” 16 times. Cause the shit these guys talk about is another level of consciousness. To me, it’s not prevalent right now in hip-hop. We were worried that we didn’t want to make every song the stupid banger shit everybody wants.”

Meech: “After we made “Thug Waffle,” we weren’t trying to make it million times. I read in a review that they were saying that there is something for everybody in D.R.U.G.S. I really feel like there's something for everyone in there. I’m sorry to you if you liked “S.C.O.S.A” and we didn’t make six “S.C.O.S.A”s. That’s boring. Who wants to hear the same thing over and over?”

Meech: “Supreme is some O.G. New York shit. I’ve been wearing that shit since I was a teenager.”

Juice: MySpace days. We used to smoke weed and wear Supreme in our MySpace profile pictures. Like we were cool and shit.

Erick: [Laughs.]

Juice: “I like the simple shit that they make. Their animal print. Floral print. I love floral print. Just the simple shit that they make.”

Meech: “I like their jackets. I like their winter wear. Like he said, the plain shit. I stay away from a lot of the other shit.”

Juice: Timeless clean pieces. Ralph Lauren. Hanes [Laughs.]

Meech: All we wear is Flatbush Zombie T-shirts, Supreme, and Ralph Lauren.

Meech: “We spoke to a few guys. It's a weird situation for them because it's like they see “Thug Waffle.” ‘Yeah, this is cool. Are these guys a gimmick? Is this real rap? What’s going on?’ They don’t really know. Every meeting that we had, I didn’t take it seriously. Not saying I didn’t take it serious but like you don’t know what the music is about. You can’t be that interested in us if you haven’t heard the music. What is it that you see that you like? Every meeting that we had I looked at, ‘What is it that you see that you like?’ The tape isn’t out. What do you really want? What are you interested in?

“You know, some people got the dream. ‘I’m trying to make it to the NBA.’ Then you got guys, ‘I’m trying to ball.’ He’ll go overseas. He’ll make it to the NBA. He’ll go anywhere, but he’s just trying to ball. I’m the nigga that’s that nigga. I’m not really necessarily like, ‘Yo I need to get signed to this label. I need a major label deal.’ That might not be the best situation. If somebody offers me a major situation-you guys out there-where I don’t have to sign my soul away, I’m down.

“I just want to make good music. Whoever wants to gravitate towards it. Whatever it's the masses, whatever it's indie. That’s the niche. Whoever makes your music. If you make your music, whoever likes it. They like it. I’m not really looking like I’m trying to be Billboard Top 40. I’m not at my crib like, ‘Yo, I need to make the top Billboard hits.’”

Erick: “I’m more interested in signing to label with artists that I like as a opposed to being on a major label. As long as like the people on this label, I’d sign it.”

Meech: “It’s definitely in your best interest. Not trying to sign a label and then they try to make me do some crazy shit that’s not us. I’ve seen that shit happen. I don’t need to name names, but I see this shit happen all the time. I’m not trying to make no bubblegum shit. No bubblegum rap. No kid’s bop.

Meech: “It’s me, Juice, A$AP Ant and A$AP Rocky. We are doing a video for it too. We shot some shit already and we are going to finish that up. Video is going to come out too. People are really going to like that.”

Erick: “It’s very good for New York. So happy about that shit.”

Meech: “It’s a banger though. Ant sends this hot ass beat. Juice plays this shit. I look at Juice, he looks at me. We decide to record. I record my verse. I really like the beat. When I really like a beat, I rap on it like I really like it [Laughs.] Juice records his verse. When he likes a beat, he raps on it like he really likes the fucking beat.

Sent that shit to Ant. Ant was ready to go, he fucked with it hard. He sent that shit back. We bang that shit for three months straight. Next thing you know, we get a little phone call. ‘Check your e-mail, man. There’s a verse in there.’ Check the e-mail. Rocky was on that shit. He just sealed the deal.”

Juice: “Classic.”

Meech: “I mean, the only difference is it's going to be a larger scale. I really see that’s about it. My life is going to change so I guess my music is going to change. That’s how it goes. If you write about your life that is. Some people aren’t. I am. But, the future is a trippy ass situation.

“I mean like now. Instead of doing this at home by ourselves, we’ll have a fucking engineer. So this guy doesn’t fucking kill himself all day long, which is good that he engineers and stuff. But we don’t have to kill ourselves. Recording in a room where we aren’t supposed to be recording in technically. That’s all that’s really going to happen. At least that’s how I see it. If it was up to me, I would never buy a home and I would make my money touring and come back to Flatbush and put my head down.”

Erick: “It’s impossible to do but you always listen to an artist and be like, ‘Damn, I wish he was the way he used to be.’ I hate that shit. You can’t be that person ever again. You are never going to be. Jay-Z can’t perform “Can’t Knock The Hustle” like he can when he was 28 years old. It's not the same. In five years, I hope we look back to this CD and the shit we are doing now and be proud of it still.

Meech: “That’s really all it was to me. It’s a start. First fucking footstep. I don’t even know what’s going to happen tomorrow or tonight [Laughs.] But just know we will be here. Our presence will be here whether or not it will be physically. We will be here.”

Juice: “We do have more projects coming out. Erick?”

Meech: “Erick’s shit is coming out in August.”

Erick: “It's called Been Here Before. It’s some shit with these guys on it. Hopefully, we can get Childish Gambino on it. We did a show with him and he’s a cool dude. He told me he was going to help me with a verse. So he’s on it. The Underachievers.”

Juice: “I have a compliation working with Remy Banks from World’s Fair and A$AP Ant from the A$AP Mob. And we going to do a three thing mixtape. Our first single already dropped, “3 Flips 6.””

Meech: “There really isn’t a mapped out plan. Let’s just make music and do whatever the fuck we want to do. If this man wants to make music with Madonna, go fucking ahead. I don’t give a fuck. If that’s your dream, if that’s what you really want to do, then I’m all with it.”