Zelly Ocho Opens Up About New Music, Working With Trippie Redd & More

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."

Things truly started to go up for Zelly in 2024. Within the past year alone, he dropped 10 projects including nine EP's and one 10-track project #2LV . The latter album holds his first collaboration with fellow Ohio native Trippie Redd called "V14D." Their collaboration came out a year after the song was made, and three years after they first connected via social media. Since then, they've made other tracks like "Worth" and "Heavenly." Their stand-out hit "Lucky Charms" appears on the fifth installment of Zelly's V2BM3 series, which dropped in April.

WARNING: EXPLICIT LANGUAGE

"Our partnership is amazing," Zelly says of Trippie. "We became really close friends, making music, and just been creating ever since, bro. That's like one of my best friends to this day. And we got so much more to come. We're working on something very, very up close and personal in the studio. We're recording stuff right now."

Trippie Redd also hopped on Zelly's latest song "From The Mud." The track leaked in 2021 but Zelly formally released it on his latest project B4theDirty . His recent EP is a taste of what to expect from two more projects arriving in 2024. He plans to drop a fresh mixtape called Dirty Drugs inspired by his old group of friends and a lyric from his early hit "Zan Freestyle." Zelly says the project is an homage to the beginning of his musical journey and signals the end of what he calls his "dirty drugs era." Once the project drops in September, Zelly will usher in the next phase of his career beginning with his final album of the year Proud of Insanity.

" Proud of Insanity is a way to let people know there's nothing wrong with being a little crazy," he says. "The way we are, the way we are programmed. Some things we can't control, but our minds, our brains, we do control them. We should be proud of it."

During our conversation, Zelly Ocho opened up about his humble beginnings, his unstoppable work ethic, and all the success he's garnered thus far. Scroll below to learn about his work with Trippie Redd, his forthcoming projects, and more.

WARNING: EXPLICIT LANGUAGE

Let's go back to the beginning. How did you come up with your stage name?

That's the easy one. I'm going to rewind it before I fast-forward. I'm 11 years old. My uncle, they're making music on a computer with cassette tapes and all of that, and they're recording music and they got their own little crew and everything. I'm just like, I don't care about Little Wayne them. I like what my uncle doing. So fast forward later, I'm still listening to they mix tape while I'm at work with my dad. I'm 18 years old, I'm at work and then I'm like, you know what? I want to make music. So catch this. I wanted to play basketball. I wasn't tall enough but o I'm playing rec ball now. My name is Zelly and My jersey number was eight. My big brother Sam —— not my blood brother. Shout out to him. He was like, "Ocho!" And I'm like, wow. Then one day I wanted to go by Lil Ocho, and then I brought it together and I made Zelly Ocho. So now I'm starting to rap myself. Now I'm recording on a computer. My first recording program, and a lot of people that don't know about it, it was called Reaper. It was the best thing that I could have ever done for myself as an artist because I had that time to myself to record music, bro, and that helped me.

How did you officially launch your career?

I started making music on my own, and then a couple friends and I were talking about music. I started saying, 'Well, I'm about to start going live with it. I'm going to post this on YouTube. The first song I put on YouTube was a remix, you ready for this, Juicy J "Bands A Make Her Dance." Then I make a song called "Dirty Drugs." This is where you're about to get the beginning of Zelly Ocho's sound. I went to a studio and I learn about autotune and ways you could just flex your voice and exercise it. So I made cadences and melodies and I made my own sound. Boom. I birthed Zelly Ocho's sound that day. The first song I put out was a song called "Super Zan Man." Fast forward to 2017-2018. I found out about SoundCloud. I'm uploading music, I'm getting feedback, I'm getting feedback on Instagram. People are telling me, they're like, 'yo, I like your music on SoundCloud' and I'm new to this. We get to 2020, I create 'VLAD', and that stands for 'Violent Life Around Drugs.' That really gave me a lot of exposure on top of that project.

What inspired you to keep going?

It was like fans and it was like family bro. I'm trying to take care of my family and I got friends and people in my family that's telling me, "Music pays. I can really see you doing something. You've been consistent for a while." I took it very seriously with fans and my family telling me. It made me really manifest and believe in my creation. They pull up to my house playing my music. So that pushed me to put out songs that are anticipated by them and the fans start singing.

WARNING: EXPLICIT LANGUAGE

To be honest, those are the only people you need in your corner from the beginning. So for them to believe from day one is amazing to hear. You've got a lot of music under your belt, but what do you feel like is the record that finally got people paying attention?

I'm going to say "Score." I made the song, right, and I'm talking about rollout to the T, I went to Los Angeles for the first time. My friends and I booked the Airbnb. I shot the video for the song. I dropped the video first on YouTube, nowhere else so all the views of the were going towards the video. It probably was 2,000 views the first day. That ain't nothing. But that was something to show me like, wait a minute, 2000 people are viewing me so I'm taking it serious. So "Score" was a song that really helped me lift off.

Cool. And then you've also got the V2BM3 series. Talk about what that stands for and what it means to you.

'Vlad to Be Me' is what it stands for like 'Glad to be the person I am,' but I put the 'V' at the beginning. 'Vlad to Be Me' is strictly Zelly and my level of what I want around my music. So it's just all straight mix tape vibes. It reminds me of Live Mixtapes. If you was an OJ da Juiceman fan, it's volume one, volume two, volume three to like volume 15. That stuck with me bro. I'm from Cleveland so that really helped me capture that moment of making the first one. That's why I kept it going as a series. My good friend Kyle, my A&R and manager, he helped me push it too by saying it's a series. I've dropped five of them thus far to this day.

WARNING: EXPLICIT LANGUAGE

You got the huge feature with Trippie Red on V2BM3, Vol. 5 . How did you guys meet and when did you make that collaboration?

The song was made a year before volume five came out. What happened is I got a DM from Trippie in 2021. A lot of rappers DM me, but I always knew Trip from Ohio. I always loved the run him and P'ierre Bourne had. It was amazing. At the time that Trippie wrote me, I was working with a producer named 16-year-old. We like this. I'm literally only rapping on his beats. When I was working with 16, I felt like I had that kind of connection with my producer. So then Trippie DMs me saying, 'Yeah, I love the music." A song that he saw first was called "Kill Myself" produced by 16-year-old partner with Clibbo. So he liked the song from me and 16, which was like my goal, I'm like being 16 are making the Good Music. Kill Myself is a great song. He seen me shoot a video with Nirvan, a video creator from Los Angeles. He shot a video to the song and Trippie saw it.

Somebody at Trip's crib was playing a song and it was tagged and I seen the video, They played my song back five times. Trippie was the DJ... five times he spun the song. A week after he DM'd me and said, 'What's up D?' He flew me to L.A. that same week. The second day I was out there, he picked me up. He came with two Bentleys, four black trucks and a Lambo truck. I got in the car, bro. This is the first time I'm meeting a superstar. Last time I met a superstar, bro, this is embarrassing to say bro. So when I got in the car and I looked to my left and I seen the red dreads, I'm like, I'm in a car with Trippie Red. It was all surreal until I got in that car. When I closed that car door, everything came to light. So from there and on,

That's dope, man. So who else have you worked with besides Trippie?

The second person I worked with after Trippy, which I got the DM before Trippie was PnB Rock . RIP to his soul. He was a wonderful man. I got a feature with him. I made a song with him prior to me meeting Trippie. He hit me up, like, 'What's up?' I wrote him back the same day. It was all surreal. This guy got a song with Nicki Minaj. It's a big person to me. Not even a big bro, just a leader in the music. He took care of himself. His voice spoke for him. RIP to his soul but look where he was at. He was rich. I don't care about all that stuff. I didn't get to link with PnB, but he knew the camp. He knew Trippie and them. I had just got acquainted with Trippie at the time and we got busy. I ended up sending PnB a track. He got on it, heard snippets, and FaceTimed me playing it. But I didn't get the audio back and the song didn't come out. We know what happened, and I understand.

Who else do you want to work with in the studio?

I want to work with Future . I'm not even saying this to be funny. I don't know how I'm going to get it done or if it's possible but I also want to work with Bill Withers. The thing behind him is he was the first inspiration when I lost inspiration. My grandmother had passed. I was listening to "Grandma's Hands" by him —— a very deep song. His music really spoke to me and I fell in love with his music. So it's crazy to say, but yes, that's on my list. I wish I could work with him. I don't know how to get it done or if he would even record a track. If I was to be able to get a license or a clearance to use his vocals or beat or whatever, or cadence, I would do it just to get put all my chips up and bet on making that song with Bill. I had his poster on my wall. Oh, and Chief Keef too. I had that Chief Keef poster on my wall next to Bill Withers. Me and my mom can relate.

The power of manifestation and putting it out into the universe is strong these days, man. So you never know what could happen. In this past year you've dropped five projects in total including your Poem V2 EP. What is your secret to staying so active with these releases?

Home studio bro. I used to have four or five boxes of Pop-Tarts because I know that I want to comfortably eat Pop-Tarts at home. That's how I look at my studio. I started off recording at home. So I will go to a studio and I'll be consistent, but you're always on a time limit. One thing with me, time is my biggest enemy. I kind of have ADHD. I'll keep thinking about how many hours we got in a session. I always recorded at home because I got the whole day to say one bar. So that's my consistency. It comes from me recording at home and just having a vibe because I created everything at home. So that's how I stay consistent, bro. Recording at home and I birthed my own sound. So it just feels good to go in there and listen back to other tracks, other stuff. And it motivates me to want to put out more. Experiment and try to level myself up. That's how I've just been doing it since.

You just dropped your latest project You Ok? What inspired that EP?

OK is a great producer, right? His name is literally "OK". When I started getting my grip on music, it was a producer I worked with. His name was 16yrold. I worked with this producer for like three months straight, bro. Nothing but his beats. I seen the progress because we worked one on one. It was like one producer and one artist on all six songs. It's more so, like, me making a producer come out as a feature because this beats are that good. I named it You Okay? just to go along with everything. When you're a rapper, nobody ever asks, "is you okay, though?" So I'm saying, "are you okay? What you're going through?" So I dropped You Okay? to kind of give that, like, before Dirty Drugs and before all this other stuff gets explained.

You've come a long way so long. I feel like whatever you're doing, it's working man. So what's next for you, man? What else are you working on?

I'm going to drop a mixtape called Dirty Drugs . It's like putting a casket under the dirt to something that is no more. Dirty Drugs will be my exit out of that era all the way. I'll put some producers from old Lil Ocho... I'll bring those producers back and we'll make new songs. We'll make part two of songs that were from a lot of the "Dirty Drug" era of my music. It's going to give a nostalgic vibe. It's going to bring back memories, like, this is what Zelly came up on. This is what he gets. Now I'm VLAD. I'm not on drugs, but I'm around them still. That's what 'Violent Life Around Drugs' is. I'm going to give that to 'em in September and then the album Proud of Insanity . They're going to eat it up when it comes out and I'm going to be ready for it.

You just dropped your latest EP B4theDirty. Is that a preview of Dirty Drugs ?

It is. So I have two versions of one of the songs. The first song that I have on the tape is "Regardless." It's gonna be another version of "Regardless" on Dirty Drugs because it's more to it. Another song on there is a feature with Trippie that I released officially. It was a leak before. You know, it kind of went out, got pulled down. Somebody caught it, kept it out there. You know how they go. Now I officially put it out. But in regards to what it is, I'm saying that Dirty Drugs can be a song from 2020. It could be a song from '24. It could be a song I made for '25. It's supposed to be all about the beginning of Zelly to what Zelly is now. I made "dirty drugs" in 2017. It was a group. It was a group of me and my friends so before the dirty. It's based on my life. I wanted it to be a gear-up thing... like, get ready for it before Dirty Drugs , before everything.


What else can we expect from you in 2024?

I'm going to drop my album. It's going to be called Proud of Insanity . It's an album I want to drop towards the winter.

Where does that title come from?

Think about a genius, right? We're all geniuses in our own way and I want to be proud of my genius. So I call it insanity. I'm insane. I created this. I'm sitting there talking to myself. I'm rapping to myself and I'm proud of it because that's how I created 'Vlad' mentally being in my own head. So I want to showcase it. And I always was like, 'I'm insane. I'm a genius. I'm Einstein.' You know what I'm saying? These people, insanity could be anything. It doesn't have to be you're a mental institutional patient on a bed, strapped up. It can mean your mind is just so strong. It can mean you're learning a new language. It can mean to make where your brain is pushing past limits that you thought you didn't have. Ever since I was 17 years old, I always was fond of the word insane. I always thought insane is cool to me. It doesn't sound crazy. Crazy sounds crazy, but insane sounds wonderful. I want to be insane. I'm not talking about insanely off where I can't even function in the world that we are in, but I can put it on the tracks.

It sounds like Proud of Insanity is going to be the beginning of a new era for you.

All the stuff I've been through is Proud of Insanity . Dirty Drugs was talking about it. Proud of Insanity is me making it through it.