“You Are The Mutha Effin Ish!” Zesto’s house flip

Not too long ago, my mans, DJ, producer, and rapper, Zesto Q dropped the house cut, “You Are The Mutha Effin Ish!” Its that bouncing anthem that one vogues to in the mirror. The vocals are avators for one’s affirmations. “You Are” triggers metallic sounds that juxtapose soulful synths and a funked up bass line.

Coming from Zesto, it would’ve seemed unexpected since he’s a long time hip-hop head. He’s a student of Rakim, Doom, and Company Flow. Through email he wrote:

I definitely came up as an artist creating Hip-Hop. But the foundations for dance music were always with me. I copped my first turntable and started collecting records because I was getting into break dancing. I liked hearing where samples were coming from and how they were being used. I had a friend who I did a lot of music and art with back in High School in the 90’s. We were doing Graffiti and loved Hip-Hop. At that time he was hitting the raves too. I came from more of a strict upbringing, so I wasn’t at the larger more epic events, but little by little I was exposed to that scene and those genres as well.

Fast forward to the early and mid 2000’s: I’m DJing a lot more in the Downtown NYC scene. I go to a lot more House events and mingled with a lot of House producers and DJ’s. I started to do some of the history and it really filled in the blanks within the relationship between Hip-Hop and House. There’s a lot of heads who know how deep the relationship is, others stick to one or the other. But from starting out as a B-Boy, I have always appreciated Clubbing for the Dancers, which is different than Clubbing for all of the other reasons people Club. Those things are cool too, but the people who really work the Dance Floor are the foundation of the Underground.

As 1/2 of the group “HOME BREW” with Dylan Cole (Dyllemma), Zesto has been working on remixes, and more house, dance, and downtempo tracks. His retrospective approach incorporates timely textures, which makes for a multi-dimensional experience, an adverse to fast food.

Unseen In Plain Sight is a collaborative EP that he put out with RebelXGenius. Its probably Zesto’s most crafted and revealing rap effort since The New Laughing Gas. Its a personal favorite.

He’s also producing and working with rapper, Hooksarthur. Listen to Zesto’s “You Are The Mutha Effin Ish!” below.