Things have happened remarkably fast forPAZ. Like 600,000 downloads of his debut mixtape to date. Or the mish-mash celebrity admirers includingKanye West,The Black Eyed Peas, andTim McGraw. Those things don’t happen overnight for most musicians, but for...
Things have happened remarkably fast for PAZ. Like 600,000 downloads of his debut mixtape to date. Or the mish-mash celebrity admirers including Kanye West, The Black Eyed Peas, and Tim McGraw. Those things don’t happen overnight for most musicians, but for PAZ, the stars couldn’t have aligned more perfectly. Only a couple years ago at Yale University, PAZ was a regular college jock, playing rugby by day and performing at rowdy, beer-soaked frat parties by night. His trademark sound – a foot-stomping mashup of rock, hip-hop, and dance beats – evolved almost by accident. "I used to stop and start between songs," says PAZ, "but that meant the crowd would stop too. At some point I just started blending my music, like a DJ.” PAZ’s unique style was an instant hit with the hard-to-please frat crowd.
At the urging of a friend, he entered a Mastercard competition for college musicians. He was chosen out of 25,000 aspiring hopefuls to tour with country music legends Tim McGraw and Big & Rich. Trading textbooks for a tour bus, he took a semester off school and hit the road. Not knowing much about country, PAZ combined honky tonk classics with his own rock riffs and hip-hop beats. The crew was taken aback. “They were like, did this L.A. kid just mashup Toby Keith and Kanye? Is that even legal?!” His unique sound made quite an impression on Tim McGraw, who took PAZ under his wing. “When Tim McGraw said I was going to be a star, that's when I knew I was going to make it,” says PAZ. “There was no question.” Word of this crazy kid who could rap, sing, and mash up live songs on the spot spread quickly, and soon PAZ was being invited to share stages with some of music’s hottest acts, like Far East Movement, Girl Talk, Big Sean, Shwayze, and Mike Posner.
The increased exposure, along with a steady stream of bootleg mashups, spread word of PAZ quickly, and within months he had ridden a wave of social media fame to one of the largest fanbases of any unsigned artist on Facebook. PAZ’s critically acclaimed debut mixtape, “Young Broke & Fameless” was released in August, 2010. It was downloaded over 500,000 times in under a year. For more info (songs, videos, tour dates, etc.) visit: www.facebook.com/whoispaz? or www.paz.fm/ orwww.twitter.com/pazpaz
