Gorilla Zoe

An Atlanta rapper whose raspy voice, measured cadence, plainspoken rhymes, and cocaine-focused themes recall Young Jeezy—the performer he succeeded in the Bad Boy crew Boyz n da Hood—Gorilla Zoe first reached mainstream listeners through the 2007 Bad Boy labelmate Yung Joc hit “Coffee Shop.” His own debut single “Hood Nigga” arrived soon after, paired with the inaugural solo album Welcome to the Zoo. Still in 2007, he issued his initial Boyz n da Hood project, Back Up n da Chevy, which generated the singles “Everybody Know Me” and “We Ready.” The late-2008 collaborative track “Lost” with Lil Wayne preceded the March 2009 full-length Don’t Feed da Animals, which topped the rap charts and entered the Billboard 200’s upper ten. Throughout 2010 he dropped 28 separate mixtapes—one each day in February—alongside the single “Just Like My Chevy.” The club-focused King Kong appeared in 2011, followed in 2015 by the mixtapes Recovery and Raised in the Jungle. A sequel to Don’t Feed da Animals arrived in 2017.