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Nothing beats going to see an artist you love live and discovering a new opening act artist who’s as dope in equal measure. That’s exactly how I came to ZZ Ward. Whichever avenue fans are coming to her (live, hearing her songs on TV like on” Pretty Little Liars”, finding her randomly online, word of mouth), the media community (MTV, Esquire, Vevo, NPR and Marie Claire) and listeners have been flocking in droves to her singing over hot beats from Tyler, the Creator, Wiz Khalifa, Kendrick Lamar, Freddie Gibbs and Childish Gambino to name a few. The scrappy bluesy/hip-hop songstress, who played this year at SXSW, toured the States, Europe and South Africa with Allen Stone and Fitz and the Tantrums, is about to take the world by storm when her debut album drops on September 18th.

Chilling backstage at Bardot in Los Angeles before her KCRW ‘It’s a School Night” show, which had the outdoor patio/club bursting at the seams to see her, I caught up with ZZ to discuss her rural Oregon origins, her Eleven Roses mixtape (check out my review of it on this site), her upcoming debut album, must-haves on tour, her thoughts on working with the impressive list of industry heavy-hitters like DJ Premier, Pete Rock, Ryan Tedder, Kendrick Lamar, Freddie Gibbs, Ali Shaheed Muhammad from Lucy Pearl and A Tribe Called Quest and a few random surprises thrown in. Had never met her before but I felt like I was catching up with my homegirl in the crew from around the way. Peep the interview below and check out zzward.com for more tour and album deets!