#7 ZEBRA KATZ
Zebra Katz is an openly gay rapper that came up in the famous underground New York ball culture, he emerged in the 2010’s. In his 2012 show for Paris Fashion Week Rick Owens used a loop of Zebra Katz’s track “Ima Read” which was released on Jeffree’s which is Diplo’s imprint for the huge label Mad Decent. It changed everything for the young artist when the single took off and the video was eventually made by RUBEN XYZ. The song was inspired by the 1990 documentary Paris Is Burning about ball culture.
After Paris Fashion Week and the success with Mad Decent Katz was working as a manager for a catering business just making videos and songs as a hobby. He began to further develop the enigma that is Zebra Katz after the song continued to thrive, eventually being named “queer rap’s crossover hit” by The Guardian. Zebra Katz has put out 4 albums and continues to release singles for Mad Decent.
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