An impassioned performance plus innate musicality easily made Fil-American rap artist EZ Mil one of the breakout artists of his generation.
His performance of the 2020 song, “Panalo,” on the Wish USA Bus for a video that was uploaded to YouTube on January 29, 2021, blew up – it has 73million views to date – with fans praising his fiery, Eminem-esque flow, the tune for a traditional Filipino folk dance, Cariñosa, and his trilingual rapping in English, Tagalog, and Ilocano.
After introducing himself to his Filipino fans in April and May this year via his homecoming concert tour of the Philippines, the 24-year-old Olongapo-raised artist is back for the release of his second album, Du4li7y, distributed by Virgin Music/UMG under FFP Records. He said this album showcased more of his versatility as a singer-composer-musician. He also produced and engineered the tracks.
The letters A and T in Du4li7y were 4 and 7, respectively, the number area code of Olongapo City. “My duality,” he stressed. He said the album is actually a “continuation” of his initial release and first project, “Act 1.”
“I hope everybody listens to Du4li7y. Everybody will get a peak as to who EZ Mil is. Du4li7y in itself just explains to me as a person,” he explained.
At first glance at the album cover, Du4li7y seems to be a play on heavy metal. And we were right with our observation.
“That was the music that I first started to create which is heavy metal and rakrakan. I’m excited for everyone to listen to the first song [‘Rapture’] on this album because it breaks me down.”
“The album took some time to be completed. I’m used to writing a lot of songs. We chose 10 from 16 tracks. This was not the regular project that I’m used to making. It took three years within the creation of the entire project and some changes,” EZ Mil explained
“We trimmed the cuts to 10. All of the titles have individual stories. If you listen to the album back-to-back, from song number 1 to song number 10, everything is connected. You will pay attention even to the audio, everything you’re hearing in this album. This album focused more on my musicality that’s why I’m so proud of it,” he said.
Just like his previous songs and compositions, EZ Mil admitted to recording the songs in Du4li7y from his house in Las Vegas, Nevada. He returned to the Philippines recently to launch the album, and promote and perform the new songs to his Filipino audience, mostly the millennials and the Gen Zs who shower him with so much adulation.
Do we hear another win for Du4li7y this time around? Let’s watch and see.