Arizona Zervas

Arizona Zervas’ rise was so swift, the music industry hardly had time to catch up. His 2019 self-released breakthrough single, “Roxanne”, debuted in the Top 40 on the Billboard charts before sparking a bidding war that eventually landed the Providence, Rhode Island-born rapper and songwriter on Columbia Records. Swae Lee jumped aboard a remix, and before Zervas knew it, he found himself on stage with the Rae Sremmurd rapper. “After ‘Roxanne’ popped off, my first big show was in front of 30,000 people,” Zervas explained to Apple Music with a bewildered chuckle. He became very famous very quickly, but his discography betrays a passionate musician dutifully improving with each release, as opposed to a one-hit wonder blindly stumbling towards sustained relevance. His brand of emo-rap party music fits in nicely among peers such as Post Malone and Bryce Vine, who blend their bars with a more nebulous approach to the genre. Zervas makes music that dives headfirst into hedonism, even when the results will only plunge him further into sadness, like on the pained-yet-party-starting “FML”. He makes music to bring people joy, even if it comes from a place of darkness. “It’s cool to see that everybody...listened to ‘Roxanne’,” he said to Apple Music. “That’s a good feeling, no matter how big the song gets.”