ZAYLAND
What genres would you say that you kinda live in between?
Recently, I've just been diving into so many different genres. Like Latin-based, Afro-based, even with alternative rock and R&B, so many different things. I just released "from Texas with love", like months and months ago, but that was a collection of old music. My voice has gotten so much better and my instrumentation has gotten a lot better. So it's really hard to put me in one place. I would say the closest person I can say I kind of resemble might be Childish Gambino.
What was the birth of Zayland?
I grew up very alone. Exactly, bro. And you can see that like so many aspects of my life, but basically like my mom, like she gave me a piano when I was like four or five. And since I was really young, I just played piano alone at home. I didn’t have many friends cause I was going from school to school. So it was hard, so I'd just be playing piano. Then I moved to Austin. I remember I won a young musicians’ contest for piano. Then I got into saxophone and my dad played bass and was in a band when he was in the military. I was just so in awe of my dad. He’s honestly my biggest inspiration. I know like a lot of people don't have their fathers around, but he gave me a solid foundation and something to look up to. But yeah, the only thing I ever had was music. Whenever I got my heartbroken, I had. Whenever my mom was going through cancer, like three or four times,I had my music. So when I'm making music, it's not just for me. People don't understand that feeling of, this is it. Speaking on foundations, Zayland is actually a part of my name because my name is Zachary Ryan Kirkland. So I just picked the Z and the AY. And then I put land. Because Kirkland is supposed to mean, um, the land of Christ, um, and basically it's where the church is supposed to be built. So I wanted it to be like Zay- land, on the land of me.
Like, what are some things that you've seen in the Dallas area, as far as artists go?
We do have a lot of different musicians in Austin, but the caliber of musicians in Dallas are on a different level. I've been in New York, I've been to LA. I'm only 22, but I went out there for music and stuff like that. And everybody I was in a room with worked with somebody that did something. I was like, “There's somebody better in Dallas.” I haven't really been able to listen to From Texas with Love in a long time because I literally just got out of the breakup and almost all the fucking songs are about my ex, but originally it was supposed to collection of music that I made with all of my homies. And almost all the niggas are from Dallas bro. I feel like we're slowly coming to that point. I think we just all have to make sure we don't get in the way of whoever else. Me and Spike have had this conversation a million times. When I say Spike’s my brother, like he's literally my brother. They're all my big brothers. Even though I'm 22, I'm still like a young nigga, Spike and Devy always look out for me bro, and they've all always told me, “It doesn't matter about which one of us gets there first, but I'm gonna turn around and grab the next nigga hand and say go.” That’s all I can do because I believe in every single person that's next to me.So I'm trying to change that, not just in Dallas, but in Texas in general.
Where are you from?
Right now I stay in the North of Dallas, butI'm not technically from Dallas. I'm from everywhere. I was born in Tokyo on a military base and then I moved. I was just like all around Texas. And then I moved to Austin, and that's where I was until high school. And then I went to college out here and I just graduated this year (2020).
