Black, queer and rapper. And more things. This is how Zebra Katz defined herself when she burst onto the American hip hop scene in 2012, with the hit Ima Read (the song says, in street lingo: "I will make that fox read, I will give her knowledge"). Zebra Katz claimed and reappropriated the term bitch , something that Missy Elliot already did with She's a bitch in 1999. Only that he was a muscular MC who did not hide his homosexuality and sang: "I am that bitch" (up to 87 times he repeated the bitch word). Although Zebra Katz moves into underground industrial hip hop with touches of experimental electronics, 'Ima Read' became a hit when designer Rick Owens played it for 11 minutes! in her fashion week show in Paris.
Zebra Katz released a mixtape in 2013, shared stages with Diplo (his Mad Decent label was the one produced by Ima Read ) and Scissor Sisters , he lavished himself for clubs and festivals (including Sónar de Barcelona in 2015), was at Red Bull Music Academy of Madrid, he put on shows in museums such as the MoMA PS1 or the Metropolitan and went on tour with Gorillaz in 2017-2018. That is why it has taken him seven years to release a new album, which is actually his debut album: LESS IS MOOR, composed and recorded between Berlin and London. It came out on March 20 with the independent label ZFK Records and has already had to cancel several performances in Los Angeles.
Who is Zebra Katz? Ojay Morgan, a New York artist (although he was born in Florida) of Jamaican descent. He studied arts at Eugene Lang College in New York, where he took acting classes. Since he was one of the few black students, he always played stereotypical roles. His thesis Moorish Contradictions (presented in the form of performances in the alternative La Mama Theater) dealt with the treatment of Arab characters in Shakespeare. "It was a precursor to LESS IS MOOR, " says Morgan at the presentation of his album.
Beyond the reference to Mies van der Rohe's motto in the title (although more is replaced by moor : Moorish, black), architecture has a veiled prominence on the album. Zebra Katz filmed the video clip Moor at Villa Auska in Lithuania, a brutally-lined, Soviet-style hotel that sticks well with its music (although not without a certain sensuality and hedonism). Under the layer of industrial noize (at times, difficult to bear) there are also drum'n'bass and more flow rhythms. Zebra Katz is clearly not afraid of noise. It is not known if it is entirely true or is one of those self-legends, but he says that he played so hard in Berghain, the temple of hard electronics in Berlin, that they ended up kicking him out.
LESS IS MOOR also sounds like pent- up rage. Zebra Katz often quotes African-American writer and activist James Baldwin , who said decades ago, "Being black in this country and being relatively conscious means constantly feeling angry." Zebra Katz's intention is to dance, to make us dance, with that rage.
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