Gorilla Zoe

It’s dinnertime backstage at Rosemont, Ill.’s Allstate Arena, just minutes before the doors open for Screamfest ’07, and Atlanta rapper Gorilla Zoe is already finishing off his second sandwich of the evening. Fresh from the airport, just hours away from hitting the stage for thousands of, yes, screaming fans, he moves with the restlessness of a man in a state of elated anticipation. “My first tour,” he says with excitement. “It’s a learning experience.”

Behind the momentum of a hit street single, “Hood Figga” — “No. 1 in the trap, No. 1 in the Chevys, No. 1 in the Yukon,” he says — Zoe speaks with ruthless confidence about his debut, Welcome to the Zoo (Block/BadBoy/ Atlantic). “I do not see the little guys,” he says in his deep, thick drawl. “For real: If you wanna win, you can’t.”

Although Alonzo Mathis was drawn to music early — “I must have been 9 or 10, rapping over instrumentals” — success was far from certain. In ninth grade, he shifted from music and started “selling weed, fuckin’ up,” he says. “Going in folks’ houses. Doing regular dumb shit kids do.” Zoe eventually split his time between the legit and the not-so-legit. “I worked Job Corps in the daytime,” he says. “Hustling at night.”

Eventually he invested in a local studio and began recording and producing. One of his beats was used by 8Ball & MJG for 2007’s “Clap On.” Soon after, star-maker Russell “Block” Spencer discovered one of Zoe’s CDs and offered the rapper a chance to join Atlanta trap supergroup Boyz N Da Hood. Zoe’s carefully interlocking lyrics bring spark to the crew’s new Back Up N Da Chevy (Block/Bad Boy/Atlantic), as well as his recent DJ Drama mixtape Hood Nigga Diaries: American Gangsta Part 2.

“Whatever I do — selling weed, selling CDs — I always work hard, grind, hustle,” says Zoe, facing down another month of Screamfest dates. “Go to sleep. Touch down. Straight to the tour. Go to the club. Hit the studio. Next city. I’m going everywhere!”