Big Zeeko has been carving out a niche in the music industry. His music has garnered half a billion streams across different platforms, including topping at #5 on Spotify’s Viral Chart and at #1 on Spotify Turkey. Big Zeeko is a songwriter, record producer, and musician who has been in the game for more than ten years. Big Zeeko attributes his musical influence to his teenage years when he hung out with his then-DJ brother. From there, he got to sample different musical tastes and vibes.
The work he is known for includes La Bruja, which was on the soundtrack of Bad Boys for Life, and Yallah, which topped the chart in Spotify Turkey. His music has also been used on TV and in the Spiderman ‘18 PS4 game. After all this work, Big Zeeko seems to be beginning a new musical journey as he branches out from producing by dropping his debut album “Planet CPO 3.”
Planet CPO 3 is a diverse album with seven tracks and collaborations with different artists. The album is available on SoundCloud. Right off the bat, neon colors and alien-like images in the album art seem to foretell an out-of-this-world vibe.
The first track is titled Schezuan, and in it, Big Zeeko stakes his place in the industry as he says, “I been the hardest and I ain’t even lying, I spit some bars and I ain’t even trying.” Schezuan also points out how Big Zeeko views his work as iconic as he references the now famous Szechuan sauce. The sauce was a limited sauce promoted by Disney Films and later by an episode of Rick and Morty.
In an interview, Big Zeeko said he likes to draw inspiration from old records and new films. This clearly comes out in the album. In the fourth track, Honor, he samples a line from Bruce Lee, part of which says, “To accept to defeat…is to be liberated from it”. This quote sets the pace for the song as Big Zeeko talks about the hustles of being in the industry and the disappointment artists face by being overlooked. Other iconic references are in the track Johnny Cage which alludes to the Mortal Kombat character, and the quotable Pulp Fiction in the track 1942.
The other artists featured in the album are the British rapper Shocktown, London-based artist Big Zeeko’s childhood friend John Conor and the producer, Matthew Bento. These artists add a different rhythm and lyrical cadence, giving the album a deeper feel.
There is also a slight nod to the psychedelic era. Although drug use is a recurring theme in trap and hip-hop, Big Zeeko takes the therapeutic approach. In the song Answers Pt. 2, Big Zeeko is “higher than the starts searching for answers,” and to find those answers, he needs to “Let go and free his mind.” In Medicate, he says, “Pour the pain away, time to meditate, time to medicate.”
Overall, the years Big Zeeko spent as a record producer heavily influenced the album’s sound. There are songs like Alright Alright Alright that have that hard trap beat and those like Hunnaz that has a gentler feel. The album sounds well-rounded and would be great to listen to during a chilled day or a night out.
