There can't be a movie like Brown Sugar anymore. It's not cool to be a hip hop head anymore. I don't think people really care about the culture like that. You look outside, and you see graffiti and it's like real people actually love hip hop. If you were born at a specific time, you can still feel and touch and taste hip hop. Meechy Darko: I think just being from New York, you have a deep-rooted connection to hip hop. My first curse word was Old Dirty Bastard. Growing up, did you feel a connection to all the legendary Brooklyn rappers? Zombie Juice: Hell yeah. I had to curse someone out a week ago, just following us around the whole store.
It ain't gonna change until we change law enforcement or the mindset of those people.
You know how many times I get in an Uber in front of my house and get stopped around the corner and the Uber driver laughs? So it ain't gonna change. Ladies still clutch their purses, and I have more money than them I have more jewelry than them my bag costs more than theirs. If you're in a different neighborhood and dressing nicely- Meechy Darko: It's no different. Are you still facing the same issues? Are you still- Meechy Darko: Being black in America? Hell yeah. You guys are living in a different part of Brooklyn now. “It's not like, ‘That's Meech and I can't talk to him.’ There’s something there, and I don't know how long that's going to last.” “Somehow I think we exude something that makes people feel like they can just come and chill or smoke with us,” says Arc, the group’s lanky producer. In the eyes of some passersby, they don’t register others come up and gush.
Throughout our time together, it seems that they exist in two worlds: One where they’re revered luminaries and one in which they’re garish strangers. And sure, it’s partly because of the hair-between them they sport two sets of dreads, a few splotches of bleach, and one beard braid-but the hair is just one piece of an inspired psychedelia-meets-streetwear-meets-high fashion collage, which, on a sunny Friday in late March, includes a long millennial pink pea coat, a 10-gallon straw hat, a black bandana, matching grills, and a few pieces of flannel.ĭespite their swanky look, the Zombies-who first came onto the scene in 2010 alongside rappers like A$AP Rocky and Action Bronson-are not yet quite recognized as rock stars, at least not to all.
Rather, together, Erick “The Architect” Elliott (Arc for short), Meechy Darko and Zombie Juice look like people who you should recognize, like larger-than-life icons. Not necessarily in the old-fashioned “guys who play guitars” sense of the term-though they do all have incredible hair. Flatbush Zombies walk through the world looking like rock stars.