If you didn’t know him before, you better catch up quick! FUTURISTIC is the next guy we will all be bragging comes from our home town.
Zachary Lewis Beck was born n June of 1991, in Bloomington. He is one of eight kids who were guided into a love of music by their dad, my friend Joe Beck. Even though he started rapping at age 6, he was more into sports than music growing up. Zack moved to Arizona as a teen with his mother, and is now considered to be one of the most successful musical acts from the Tempe area.
He gets stopped everywhere he goes for autographs and photos, including around BloNo. He is a huge star on the Internet, with a massive social-media following and dozens of music videos viewed more than 30 million times.
According to our chat this morning on WBNQ, which you can review by clicking HERE, things really started to pop with his viral video “Nerd Raps Fast at College”.
.From The Phoenix New Times:
By the time he was in his teens, he had started a hip-hop group with a high school friend, a rapper who went by the name E-Batt. His mom wanted him to continue his education so he enrolled at Mesa Community College. But his vision and desire to be a hip-hop artist never wavered, and he continued recording songs and working on his rhymes. He hooked up with a fellow McClintock grad, Jakob Owens, who was studying film at Arizona State University. Owens turned out to have a knack for shooting colorful, visually popping music videos. Pairing with Futuristic and his already impressive rhyming ability, the two collaborated on music videos starting in 2010, with “Who Dat.” Beck was just 19 years old, and it was both his and Owens’ first time shooting a music video.
The partnership has proved fruitful for both artists. When Beck decided to move to Los Angeles last year, Owens was his roommate. They now share a two-bedroom apartment in a nice part of North Hollywood. Count their collaborations before and after the move, and they’ve made more than 35 music videos in five years. Their careers have grown symbiotically. Owens shoots Futuristic’s music videos, and Futuristic lets Owens monetize the videos on his YouTube channel, TheBuffNerds. Flashy visuals are more important than ever in hip-hop, and Owens’ music videos certainly have helped Futuristic’s career. When you ask anyone involved in hip-hop around the Valley about Futuristic, many say the first thing they noticed were the videos.
You can find FUTURISTIC’s latest album THE RISE for sale on iTunes and streaming on Rdio!
Today we debuted his newest song with A Great Big World – Hold Each Other, which is being added to radio station playlists nationwide.
You know you are doing A-OK when you have your own clothing line. YAASSSSSS!!!!!
WTF (We’re The Future) threads can be found HERE.
This is only the beginning of his story. Start following along now, so you can say you knew him when!
8-13-15
