Flatbush Zombies walk through the world looking like rock stars. Not necessarily in the old-fashioned “guys who play guitars” sense of the term—though they do all have incredible hair. 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. 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.
Despite 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. Not yet. 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. In the eyes of some passersby, they don’t register; others come up and gush. “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. “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.”
The thing that could disturb any semblance of privacy and fan-artist intimacy the group currently enjoys is their new sophomore album, Vacation in Hell. It’s a simultaneously woozy and soulful 19-song ride through weighty topics like racism, the school-to-prison pipeline, suicidal thoughts and loss—and yet it manages to be fun, with a few bangers to boot. “I feel like Vacation in Hell is about making the best out of a situation that may not be the best,” Arc says. “And personal things that were happening were making the title make more sense.”
GQ: What was happening in your lives when you were putting this album together?
Arc: We all have individual struggles. Personally, a lot of things with my family. My uncle got very sick. My mother's other brother passed away some years ago, and it just was reminiscent of what happened to him. And just struggles of confidence and competing with people, other artistic endeavors and shit like that.
You’re touching on political things, calling Donald Trump a “fucking fake” on “M. Bison." Was that a conscious choice?
Meechy Darko: If you go back and listen to the older stuff, we always, since day one, did that. It shows you that the world is currently fucked up all the time. There's never a time when political music is not needed. I don't think we thought, “We need this political song.” But I know that if we made an album without a song with that kind of message, we would feel like something was missing.
There’s a reference to the school-to-prison pipeline on “Best American”—is that something that you guys think about a lot?
Meechy Darko: Of course, man! You know how many people are in fucking jail? A lot of people hate Barack Obama, but there's one thing I'll say he did: He freed a lot of motherfuckers that should not be in jail right now. There's a lot of motherfuckers in jail for bullshit. I've been arrested for weed a lot of fucking times. For having a little bag of weed, man.
Growing up in Flatbush, did you feel like you were being filtered into the prison system?
Meechy Darko: Hell yeah. I remember one time, this cop arrested me. It was a black dude, too. I know that people like to think that with cops, it’s just because they're white—nah, sometimes cops are just cops. When he put me in the system, he looked at my tattoos. He said, "Oh, gang tattoos," and he wrote it down. I was so pissed off because now I'm in some file somewhere as being in some fucking gang for some tattoos that mean nothing. And that's just one of the little things that they do. They take pride in getting you locked up.
Zombie Juice: The very first [altercation], I was riding my bike. To get to your building you have to get on the sidewalk at some point, right? So I literally pulled in, cause my building is on the corner, and the cop came out of his car, dragged me off my bike, ripped my shirt and then arrested me. And the precinct was around the corner. It was just stupid as fuck.
You guys are living in a different part of Brooklyn now. Are you still facing the same issues? Are you still—
Meechy Darko: Being black in America? Hell yeah. [laughs]
If you're in a different neighborhood and dressing nicely—
Meechy Darko: It's no different. Ladies still clutch their purses, and I have more money than them; I have more jewelry than them; my bag costs more than theirs. People are still afraid of you. You know how many times I get in an Uber in front of my house and get stopped [by police] around the corner and the Uber driver laughs? So it ain't gonna change. It ain't gonna change until we change law enforcement or the mindset of those people.
Zombie Juice: Even shopping. I had to curse someone out a week ago, just following us around the whole store. It never ends.
Growing up, did you feel a connection to all the legendary Brooklyn rappers?
Zombie Juice: Hell yeah. My first curse word was Old Dirty Bastard. It was [ODB] and Mariah [Carey]. I was watching the [“Fantasy"] video.
Meechy Darko: I think just being from New York, you have a deep-rooted connection to hip hop. If you were born at a specific time, you can still feel and touch and taste hip hop. You look outside, and you see graffiti and it's like real; people actually love hip hop. It's a little different now. I think people like it as entertainment. I don't think people really care about the culture like that. It's not cool to be a hip hop head anymore. There can't be a movie like Brown Sugar anymore.
So to some extent, do you feel like you missed something?
Meechy Darko: I like evolution, man. I like to see where things go. But I can't miss something that's still there. I go back and listen to it all the time. So what am I going to live in a 10-year time loop in the '90s? That would be a great movie but a terrible life… I miss the authenticity. But what do I know? I was a kid.
Zombie Juice: It felt real to me, I don't know.
New York has changed a lot in your lives. What's watching that been like?
Zombie Juice: Fucking weird.
Meechy Darko: You got motherfuckers out here in flip-flops and sandals on the fucking hardest streets of Brooklyn, sipping coffee. I don't know what's going on, because when I walk down the hardest streets cops want to shoot me. Niggas want to shoot me. But they're walking cozy. That's what's so weird about gentrification. They're in my neighborhood, but I'm still getting profiled. I'm still going to jail. But the prices of everything is going up. I ain't mad at it, but I'm mad at it. Giuliani cleaned New York up years ago, so it ain't going to be like it was before. I don't want violence, I don't want crime. But I do still want the New York grit. I do still want people coming here saying, "These people are mean and they have an attitude." It's not that we have an attitude, it's that y'all slow.
Zombie Juice: I don't like that if I'm hanging out with my family outside for the last 10 years, playing music, having a barbecue, then just cause these people move in, now we're disturbing the community.
Arc: I think it's good that there's change, but there's certain things: Like, they say that in a couple years downtown Brooklyn will look no different than Manhattan. Even on paper, no two places should look the same.
Forgive me for a tough pivot here. On "YouAreMySunshine," Meech raps about A$AP Yams. When Yams died, how did that affect you guys going forward?
Meechy Darko: I made the song because I didn't want to talk about it.
Well on the song you say you stopped getting high—
Meechy Darko: Not weed though by the way.
Zombie Juice: We don't sip cough syrup and shit.
And that was directly influenced by his death?
Meechy Darko: For me it was. I mean, I wasn't into that kind of shit beforehand anyways. Ironically, the night that happened, I sipped that shit for really no reason. I was just doing it. And that's why I know that I don't need to be doing that kind of stuff. That night taught everybody a lesson about friendship. And loving. And not realizing that we're human. We think, like, “Oh, somebody that's very important to us can go.” Sometimes I don't think people realize how special someone is. He was a special human being.
Zombie Juice: There's times when I get frustrated because I think, “Damn, he should be here to see this.”
Meechy Darko: I'll never get over that shit, bro. I cry all the time about that shit.
Does he ever visit you in your dreams or in trips?
Meechy Darko: My dreams have been pretty trash lately. I would love to see my friend in my dream. It's probably going to happen now. Mike Tyson was in my dream the other day though. He didn't have a face tat either.
Zombie Juice: Once you saw the face tattoo wasn't there, you should've known. But you never know until it's too late sometimes.
Meech, last night you said you hadn't done psychedelics for two years—
Meechy Darko: Yeah, I realized I might've exaggerated. It's probably nine months.
Zombie Juice: More like not binging on psychedelics.
Meechy Darko: I'll take shrooms every now and again. I'll microdose. But I don't know, man, there's this misconception that we just go crazy and do drugs. I just want people to understand that it's not like that. You never hear me saying, "I need me some shrooms."
Did psychedelics inform your creative process at all for this album?
Meechy Darko: Life. My friends, my family, my fans... I need the audience and these guys and everything around me to make music. But I didn't smoke weed the whole time we did 3001.
Arc: I never really did anything. I don't think people think that I do anything, but I always try to make it clear for that balance. These guys are not fucking drug addicts, I'm not a drug addict. Even if I did do something, I don't want it to be like, "Oh man, Erick took LSD. Now he's cool." Or, "Now his shit is hotter." Or they think that I got superpowers from taking LSD or something.
Meechy Darko: That hurts me a little bit sometimes. Someone thinks that that's what helped you, and then they'll look at Erick different because he doesn't do it. It's like, he's no less than me because he never did it before. There are some creative motherfuckers in this world that never took a drug, ever.
Zombie Juice: It's still all about you. You can take all the drugs you want, but if you're not right yourself you're going to get nothing from it.
Meechy Darko: I'm going to take some shrooms this weekend though.
What's the occasion, Easter?
Meechy Darko: Um, I'm seeing Hamilton tonight. And it's Passover, it's Easter, yeah.
