Inside The Credits 049: Zach Ezzy
The Sneaky Rising Alt R&B Wiz Zach Ezzy
Sometimes creating a new modern sound is more subtle, sneaky even. The only way you can even realize it’s happening is by looking through the credits and realizing, “Wow, this person did all that.” My awareness of Zach Ezzy, and specifically his proficiency in Alt R&B, arrived when I heard one of my favorite, and still criminally underrated, albums of 2024, Asha Imuno’s Pins & Needles. Ezzy has credits on every song, which of course caught my attention, but I didn’t make note of his true journey of invention until I saw his name credited on all three releases in 2025 for rising R&B act Sailorr. I first heard the burgeoning singer on producer Nascent’s 2023 album, but the sounds she’s introduced as a solo act seem distinctly different—like they took years to subtly craft to pierce through the musical void. Her best song thus far, to me, is the February 2025 released “Cut Up.” Ezzy takes a (currently indecipherable) sample and seems to transmit it through an old radio speaker. It then seamlessly blends with a bouncy 6/6 time signature that lays the perfect groundwork for a yearning flow from Sailorr that’ll make you twist and bob your head like a dolphin.
What I noticed from the new Sailorr songs was momentum. Momentum, however, never comes out of nowhere. So I dove back to the beginning of Ezzy’s sonic journey. His first muse in the Alt R&B space was even toned crooner emawk. Ezzy produced eight songs for the singer from 2019 through 2021. It’s hard to not be reminded of the singer 6lack’s tone when you hear emawk’s delivery. However, Ezzy’s production is what makes him become distinct. While 6lack’s early work all sounded like it was carefully crafted with a twinge of the eastside of Atlanta, emawk’s Ezzy produced songs sound straight out of Greenpoint, Brooklyn or Highland Park, LA. They contain that sort of neighborhood feel that’s slightly hipster, but also just vibey enough to reach mainstream preferred ears. Ezzy helps emawk fill in this in-between space which ultimately makes him distinct, this is an obvious Sailorr precursor.
While Ezzy produced some great Alt R&B songs for others in his early career up through 2021 (Broox, Alex Isley, Asha Imuno, & more). His next moment of pure discovery came with his work on singer Sophie Marks’ 2021 ep butterflies. When listening to Marks it’s hard to not think of singer Hope Tala (much like 6lack with emawk). However, Ezzy again maneuvers her sound to feel like a more distinct version of bossa nova blended Alt R&B. Firstly, Marks is actually Portuguese, the language spoken in Brazil where bossa nova originates. Thus, Ezzy focuses much of his attention on leaning the production pockets in a direction where both Brazilian and English singing can take place. This means Marks gets more horns than Tala’s more down the middle fusion, the guitars are open and the drums go back and forth between 808-laden pulses and sharp rim shot hits.
Much like between emawk and Marks, Ezzy did a lot of rounded production for a vast group between Marks and Asha Imuno’s Pins & Needles, including great songs with Safe, Phabo, Solomon, Healy, Sailorr, and more. Yet, within this time he also did something unique, he worked directly with the artist that would precursor Imuno’s distinctness, Jordan Ward. Ward delivered one of the most lauded Alt R&B projects in recent history in 2023’s Forward. Ezzy produced what I believe is the album’s best, most forward pushing song (pun intended), “FAMJAM4000.” The production on that track sounds like an exact blend of early 2010’s Chance The Rapper production with Soulquarians early 2000’s stylings. I believe Ezzy’s work on Imuno’s album the following year is his best example of taking something people revere and shifting it for another individual voice to even greater heights.
While Imuno’s album hasn’t become as much of a critical darling as Ward’s, to me, it transcends an even more inventive range of sounds. Ezzy took that early 2000s and 2010s fusion and added warped west coast Rap/R&B blog era tones a la Kendrick Lamar’s OD mixtape on tracks “Honey,” “Phonics,” and “Road Rage.” He reached his peak though when he moved that original Ward fusion into mid 2010s Alt R&B land with tracks like “Clementine” and “Pushing Buttons.” Those are the best songs on the album because the amalgamation sounds like a gliding time machine that somehow eventually lands in the future.
The future is now with what Ezzy is doing with Sailorr. She sounds adjacent to contemporary R&B acts like Summer Walker (who featured on the remix for her song “Pookie’s Requiem”), but delivers her work as if it’s laced with LA’s Koreatown energy fused with a swampy Florida swag (she reigns from Jacksonville). Ezzy knew from his previous work how to maneuver her music just enough away from its parallels to make it glow.
Inside The Credits 049: Zach Ezzy- The Playlists