Veeze: All gas, no breaks

In an already crowded field, Veeze’s dark humour and effortless flow have helped establish him as one of Detroit’s most original rappers. Now, the 29-year-old is ready to take on the world beyond Michigan.

The first thing you notice about Veeze is his voice. The rising rapper from Detroit has a tone that sits somewhere between bronchitis and a death-rattle rasp – all crunchy gravel, animated by evocative turns of phrase. This characteristic carries through into his free-flowing raps, where his drowsy croak gives the impression that he’s issuing threats directly into your ear, like Brando’s Don Corleone.

Sinking back into a chair backstage at Islington venue The Garage, the 29-year-old is feeling reflective. “If you spoke to someone who knew me in the first grade, they’d say I rap just like how I talk. I’ve never really raised my voice.” He pauses. “I am not going to the studio and making up a character like these other guys.”

It’s just a few hours before Veeze is set to perform his first ever headline UK show, and there’s a palpable buzz in the air: his day one friends are raucously singing along to early Young Thug and debating whether aliens created the pyramids; a Deliveroo driver arrives with a huge box of Chinese food; and there’s so much weed smoke in the air it’s like walking through a THC-enriched sauna. Yet despite the backstage chaos, Veeze barely breaks a sweat, possessing the composure of someone who’s been doing this for a lifetime already – a quality traceable to a tough upbringing that has bestowed in him the value of perseverance. It also means that whenever he brags, it feels hard-won rather than cocky. “I never need to be humble in my life, because I am sick!” he exclaims. “Look, there ain’t nobody in this whole world who is gonna get on a song and have a better verse than me.” 

Since emerging around the start of this decade, Veeze has established himself as one of Detroit’s most strikingly original rappers and the kind of critical darling who gets Pitchfork affiliated writers salivating on their socials. Last year, rap critic Alphonse Pierre observed, “Veeze just does what he wants; he’s a rambler in the style of mixtape-era Lil Wayne.” A typical Veeze bar often feels like someone having an epiphany after waking from a deep sleep, and shot through with a wicked sense of humour. “I’m going ape shit, I might climb the Empire State Building,” he raps on No Sir Ski, a highlight from his 2023 album Ganger. This is trap music beamed from the ninth circle of hell, an intoxicating combination of metallic, curb-stomping drums, doom-inducing ticking hi-hats and spooky synth lines. On Rich Rockstar he brags that he puts so many stacks of cash under his pillow that they should call him the tooth fairy, while earlier song Wilt references a bag full of cocaine that’s so white it “looks like dandruff.”  As an MC, he insists that none of his playful lyrics are written down and that he freestyles everything akin to an improvisational comedian, “becoming one with the beat. I walk out the booth and my ni***s are like, do you realise what you just said, bro!?”

He credits his environment with cultivating his dark sense of humour. Veeze grew up in the city’s Southfield area, near Seven Mile – a place where violent crime is 35 percent higher than the national average. Here, selling crack cocaine is commonplace, and the police often hire bounty hunters to go after criminals. “Because of how dark it is, we laugh at the craziest stuff,” he explains, candidly. “In Detroit, we laugh at our worst moments.” Not far from where Veeze grew up is the 400-acre abandoned Northville Regional Psychiatric Hospital. Like so many of the dilapidated buildings and former factories in the area, it’s filled with transients and has taken on a deathly countenance; the original prestige of its architecture giving way to brutal decay. Veeze says this derelict backdrop means Seven Mile and other areas around Detroit – places known for urban legends like the human-eating Michigan Dogman – feel like an abandoned horror movie set, particularly at night. “If I had to shoot a horror movie, I’d have everything I need at home.”

Recalling his youth, Veeze says he grew up with a hustler’s mentality, someone who could “even sell apples and pears for a good price”. He also spent his formative years listening to rap’s finest storytellers: artists like 2Pac, DMX, Jay-Z, Lil Wayne, Cam’ron, Nate Dogg, Bun B, Scarface, Jadakiss and Busta Rhymes. “The problem was those guys are masterminds and geniuses, so listening to them will make you feel like you can’t rap,” the artist – who only started rapping at 26 – admits. “It took for rap to get a lot weaker for me to be confident enough. When the standards of rap dropped, I thought: yeah, I can get in there!” 

This flash of modesty is perhaps a little misplaced. After all, he counts the likes of Lil Uzi Vert and Lil Yachty (who both appeared as guests on Ganger) among his fans. The support makes sense: two proudly weird rap outliers intent on going their own way. He also has co-signs from Detroit peers like Babyface Ray, Icewear Vezzo, Peezy, 42 Dugg and Talibando. Together, these Michigan artists are leading a new renaissance for American street rap – making party music for people who need eyes in the back of their heads. 

Arguably, the region hasn’t garnered this much attention since Eminem’s peak, or the days of J Dilla. But where Veeze feels unique is the way his sound so often veers left, trading endless brutal quips for revelations that pierce through his armour. It’s refreshing how he lets the listener peek into the imperfect human being behind all of the superhero posturing. Yes, his setlist for the London show is loaded with bass-heavy hood anthems, but go a little deeper into his discography and you discover a vein of rap that tunes into emo sensibilities. On Unreleased Leak, violins whistle out in a way that’s both glorious and melancholy. Veeze floats across this downcast instrumental, unsure whether to project hyper confidence (“Connected with no plug like the bluetooth,” he drawls), or to question the expectations around fame (“These n****s think I’m famous, I don’t even feel different”). 

“I never get to perform those slower songs,” he reflects. “I look at music like creating different moods for a movie. You want to make people feel strong, but also give them something for their weaker moments, too.” 

On Tony Hawk, acoustic guitar tempts out frank admissions about self-medicating and paranoia. Despite the personal demons being excavated, though, Tony Hawk contains his mission statement: “I don’t give a fuck how old I am / I’m still gon’ grind like Tony Hawk.” It’s the sound of someone weighing up all their shortcomings, but still winning – a transformational journey that makes the listener feel like they can also beat the very bleakest odds.

No matter how big he gets, Veeze insists he will always root his subject matter in the perspective of the underdogs and the disenfranchised. “I came up off of rapping. It isn’t like I had a sweet outfit or a big chain or a cool haircut before I rapped. I always touch back to the people who got nothing and all the real servants in the street. I could rap about having 12 Rolls-Royces, but maybe only Jay-Z will relate to that.”

Tonight’s venue is filling up and Veeze disappears to prepare for the show. There isn’t a person in the crowd who looks older than 25, and when Veeze finally emerges on the stage just after 9 p.m., the screams tell you everything you need to know about where his career is heading. Afterwards, I catch up with Veeze one last time backstage. He’s surrounded by women and smiling from ear-to-ear. He wipes some sweat away and looks to the ground for a moment, where there’s an endless pile of double cups and backpacks. With typical self-belief, Veeze concludes: “There’s a lot of famous rich rappers we can live without, but if you take me out, it would be a blank spot in life. I’ve come so far and I’m going to go a lot further,” he says, mirthfully. “You know, there’s people back home who never expected me to make it out the hood and to be doing shows out in London… but here I am.”