Faces of Antyx: Zoe

We’re ringing in our first Faces of Antyx member of September with Zoe! 

Zoe has partnered and participated with Antyx through facilitating rap hacks workshops and performing in our 2019 Culture Shock event for the past three years now. She explains Culture Shock as “the essence of unity in hip-hop and Culture Shock is a dope representation of that”. She works hard to connect with youths and does work in the reserves in Treaty 7 and with inner-city youths in both Saskatoon and Calgary. She achieves this by allowing youths to be held to a higher standard by making them equals and holding space for them. By doing this, Zoe finds that the youth will always show up and excel when there’s a healthy feedback process. This can also translate to other areas in youth’s lives by developing healthier relationships with themselves and others. She commends Antyx for their work with youth saying “I think that youth get skipped over a lot in our world and organizations like Antyx really put youth at an equal focus.”

When we asked her what her favourite part about Antyx was, she responded with:

“I think the live energy because they do so much stuff that’s in the moment whether it’s like a dance class that I’ve been to, or an event like Culture Shock, or something like Rap Hacks that’s really in the community and also open to the wider YYC community. I think there’s always an element of life because I think it features things around art and creativity, to me it has like it’s own pulse, it’s own heartbeat. It’s very alive and Antyx really showcases that and the performances that they create with youth as kind of their side projects or when they allow youth to take leadership roles and kind of have their own ideas of what they want to create.”

Zoe started her creative journey at the young age of 11 when she started voice acting doing boy voices for anime productions. Playing with toys and using her imagination she was able to find her voice which led to her developing her passion and skills for rapping and hip hop. While her early career meant spending time alone in the studio and critiques from other kids, she pushed through it. “I learned really quick that if you’re going to allow your creativity to really flourish you gotta be cool being brave doing something that’s kind of strange.”

For Zoe, the biggest opposing force that she’s encountered on her creative journey has been her ego and the doubting thoughts that can arise. To fight this, she delves deep into what is causing this block and grounds herself in nature to hit reset and advocates for others to go outside in any capacity that’s safe for them to process their emotions. 

In addition to working extensively with youths, she is the president of Cypher Club in Calgary, has just released a collaborated single “Body Worship” and is in the process of releasing her EP, The Love EP. Her work aims to be very truthful about her life experiences and has chosen to name her EP the  Love EP “because I seem to rap about that kind of essence a lot because, to me, love is everything from ‘this romantic love’ to ‘self-love’, to ‘the love of your passions’ to ‘a connection to whatever you is a higher energy’ or wherever you get your kind of get up and go from. And I think that to me, I really just love music that makes me feel good, that makes me think.”

Her performances aim to be a unique experience and offer her audience rare energy. As a woman in the rap scene, she admits it can be intimidating but encourages women to keep showing up and bring their A-game because if people aren’t expecting you, that’s on them and they’ll adjust because they ultimately have to. 

“I think the more voices we have in hip hop, the more rich it can become.”

Women should be encouraged to share their stories to feel powerful in their voice and be able to communicate their needs. Zoe emphasizes that it’s a benefit to humanity when there’s a good mix”. 

Zoe ended the interview with a piece of advice from the rapper Shad; to pick three streams in your life to prioritize. Anything more and it can become too much, but to hold on to those three to keep your needs in check and to keep experiencing life to the fullest.

Check out Zoe’s Instagram to keep up to date with her ventures and her release of the Love EP:

@zhethefree