Via: iheart.com
Zelly Ocho is ready to enter the next era of his career.
Denzel Young a.k.a "Zelly Ocho" worked nonstop to solidify his sound for nearly a decade. The artist out of Cleveland, Ohio began taking rap seriously at age 18. He started in 2015 as Lil Ocho — a name that his older friend Sam gave him based on his No. 8 jersey from his rec basketball team — and cranked out remixes to hit songs like Juicy J's "Bands A Make Her Dance." After perfecting his craft for two years, Lil Ocho evolved into Zelly Ocho and started dropping four to five projects annually.
By 2020, his sound had morphed into a movement that inspired a new wave of artists. He connected with producer 16yrold a.k.a Sig.Carlito, who locked in with Zelly. 16yrold, whose biggest song to date is Sheck Wes' "Mo Bamba," produced early projects like It Could Be Worse and helped pick out songs for his pivotal project VLAD, which means "Violent Life Around Drugs." Zelly's previous drug-induced raps over bass-filled trap instrumentals matured into songs full of quick-paced cadences with cohesive bars that describe his everyday struggles like "My Choices" and "You Can Too."
As his artistry developed, Zelly's consistency never changed. He continued to drop multiple projects back-to-back thanks to a healthy addiction to his home studio and 16yrold's beats. Over the past four years, Zelly Ocho delivered several VLAD-inspired projects like OnlyVlad (2021) and several installments of V2BM3 series, which stands for "Vlad To Be M3."
