Breaking into the music industry is never easy, and for rising artist HZI, the biggest challenge for him has been putting himself out there. He shares, “I’ve always been passionate about music, but I’ve always been a reserved person. Reflecting on his early releases, HZI recalls, “I wasn’t nervous when I dropped ‘Crybaby,’ as it was a joke I made in 30 minutes, including vocal engineering. It was the songs after that I was nervous to drop because they started to become more serious. I just continued to drop songs, slowly becoming more confident.”
A typical day for HZI working on a new project is a mix of writing and refining. He shares, “A typical day for me working on a project would be sitting in my room on the PC writing songs and engineering and then hearing the rough drafts & deciding to start all over again.” He adds, “I’m working on my first mixtape, I’ll get started on it & by the time I’ve finished I want to take a different creative approach. I guess that’s where I’m so young in my career I’m rapidly growing to understand what music means to me. I’ve figured out what exactly I’m going for and I plan to start dropping towards the end of next month. This will be the first time I have visuals and it’ll be the first time I feel like people will fully understand what type of artist I am.”
Even as an emerging artist himself, HZI offers advice to others navigating the same path. He shares, “Even though I’m upcoming myself I’d tell a fellow up-and-coming artist to be themselves and create art that expresses themselves. Music is a form of art that makes you feel something whether you realize it or not. People will relate to your story and what you have to say, you just need to trust yourself.” HZI’s journey reflects the balance of vulnerability and determination that many young artists face. With his first mixtape and accompanying visuals on the horizon, he is confident that audiences will soon see the full scope of his artistry.