If you’ve spent even a few minutes googling Zhu, the terms elusive, mysterious and enigmatic, among other synonyms, have all seemed to loom heavily over the artist since his sonic surfacing in 2014. His intention, in shrouding his identity, was to present an alternative to the DJs and producers that were promoting their mugs first, and their music second. As the media is wont to do, they became obsessed with this one facet of the Zhu persona – and they’ve never let it go.
In The Wizard Of Oz, the curtain pulls back to reveal a figure much smaller, less impressive, and hardly as wonderful as promised. While it’s almost three years later and we still haven’t seen his face, there’s no longer a mystery to be solved, nor a deceptive figure to be exposed.
Instead, 27-year-old Steven Zhu has been revealed to be a lover of music, with great respect and reverence for those that came before him. He’s producing some of the most soulful electronic music around, in a genre that’s in a phase of heavy mass production. And he’s created a style so inimitable, it’d be foolhardy to even try. His latest project, Generationwhy, is the proof.