WILMINGTON, DE – When most people take a first look at Joshua Marzz – with his long red hair and thick beard – their first thought is probably not, “He must be a hip-hop artist.” But the 20-year-old prodigy from the outskirts of Wilmington, Delaware has been immersed in hip-hop since he was a little kid. It’s been his passion for more than a decade, and his new EP “Pvrvllvx” (pronounced Parallax), is his most recent offering to the world.
“Parallax essentially describes looking at something from many different angles,” Marzz said. “And this EP is about me looking at my life from different perspectives. It’s a really hard EP. The beats slap and the content of the lyrics are very in-your-face. It’s aggressive, but that tells you a lot about the struggles I’ve had over the years. But instead of taking a practical look at it, I decided to be creative and take a kind of devilish, out-to-get-me, trying-to-bring-me-down persona to it.”
The new EP drops on Dec. 10 and will consist of four songs. He collaborated on the project with a producer out of Sweden who goes by the name Pvrvnormvl (pronounced Paranormal) – who’s name and spelling was inspiration for the title of the EP.
“His beats are crazy hard and his production is on another level,” Marzz said. “I needed a change with what I had been doing and I needed to show people that I’m not in just a box of one kind of music. I can do whatever I want to. And when I found his music on Soundcloud I knew that’s the direction I wanted to go. I worked very closely with him on all four songs on this EP.”
Marzz said he’s excited to see how the world accepts his music, especially when they find out where he’s from. Wilmington, Delaware isn’t known for being a mecca of great music. In fact, it’s known for something far worse – as one of the cities with the highest murder rates in the world. In fact, it has such a bad reputation that many people refer to it as “Killmington,” and there was even a film made about the town called “Murder Town USA.”
But Marzz said he was somewhat insulated from the violence of the inner city. And even though he did see “some crazy shit go down,” he said wouldn’t change his childhood experiences because it was those same experiences that introduced him to hip-hop greats like Eminem, Lil Wayne and Whiz Khalifa. Unlike others from throughout the city, Marzz wasn’t into country music and he didn’t like pop. But the underground nature of that hip-hop movement was something that spoke to the things going on in his head, and he soon discovered a way to put out his own message through music of the same ilk.
“I’m all about the good vibes,” he said. “There’s a lot of negativity in the world, and a lot of bad shit happens and people dwell on it too much. My music talks about all this negativity around us by trying to figure out the best way to go about things. The stereotype with hip-hop music is that everyone kind of drinks and does drugs, and that’s just what is cool to do. I even went through a period of that – but for me it was just a way to get away from the world. I was caught in that negative cycle, and I knew I couldn’t do it anymore because it was eating away at me. Over the past couple of years I’ve realized that what I put out to the world is what I get back, and if you put out negative vibes, that’s what you’ll get back. Even though all this negative stuff is happening around us, we have to push forward. Positivity is the only thing that’s going to change the world. We’re at a time where digitally we’re progressing faster than what we even know what to do with. At the same time, we’re too bogged down and distracted with what’s going on with politics and other issues in the world. We have to start thinking differently. We have to start looking at these situations in a different light.”
Fans who want to get a sample of Marzz’s music can check out his Soundcloud page, or watch the music video for “Demon of the Hidden Mist” on YouTube. The EP “Pvrvllvx”, scheduled to drop Dec. 10, will be available for purchase on all digital download sites – including iTunes, Apple Music, Google Play, Rhapsody, iHeart Radio, and more. Fans who want to stay tuned to future music releases or live performances can follow Marzz on social media on Twitter and Instagram.