Swerzie

UNDO (formerly)

Sergio Velasco, professionally known as **Swerzie**, is a 24 year old rapper from Chattanooga, Tennessee. His musical style consists of aggressive flows over heavy trap beats. He is the founder of the Icy Rotten collective.

## Early Life

Swerzie was born in Cali, Colombia. He moved to Chattanooga with his mother at the age of five because his mother had a friend who had previously immigrated to the town. As a young kid, he described himself as "quiet" and "very nice".

According to Swerzie, he first started getting buzz by "roasting people" on Facebook. Consequently, when he started making music, his name was already wide spread throughout Chattanooga.

He started rapping at the age of 13. He created "Swerzie" by combining his name and Lil Wayne's nickname "Weezy".

Appropriately, his first song released under the name "Swerzie" was a remix of Lil Wayne's **"Bill Gates"** called **"Steve Jobs"**. He would quickly gain local fame throughout Chatt through his music..

The first song Swerzie would upload onto SoundCloud would be a remix of Tyga's hit song **"Rack City"**. From there, he would upload a steady stream of music, oftentimes in the "based" style inspired by Lil B The Based God.

## 2013-15: UNDO and Swerzianity

On September 3rd, 2013, Swerzie joined the collective **UNDO Lifestyle Group**, or **UNDO** for short. The group consisted of **Jordan Jet'Zen, Loco Giovanni, JETffrey, Kage Roxx, Luke Skyballer (Shrub), Myze, Kevin Acid, Dizzy Dean, Milli Metoyer,** and **RJ Jenkins (ShotByReggie)**.

On October 1st, 2015, Swerzie would release his first full length album, ***Swerzianity***. The album contained ten tracks, and was assisted by fellow UNDO members Milli Metoyer, Kage Roxx, Kevin Acid and ShotByReggie. It also included two bonus tracks, **"Where I'm From (Chattanooga)** and **"Where I'm From, Pt. 2"**. It was preluded by the EP ***Swerzianity Is Coming***.

Sometime during this year Swerzie would develop the collective which would eventually become Icy Rotten.

## 2016: Evolution

2016 would be a very experimental year for Swerzie, as he would phase out of his "lyrical" flow to explore other sounds.

On April 6, 2016, Swerzie would release the music video for his song **"GOD LEVEL"** which was produced by Anti-World's Landfill (formerly known as Syringe). The video would later be set as unlisted due to backlash over his use of the n-word. He would also post a slowed down version of the song on his second SoundCloud account.

A month later, Swerzie left UNDO. He would fully devote himself to his new group, Icy Rotten.

During this year, Swerzie would link up with various members of the underground collective **Midnight Society**. He would feature on **Original God's** track **"Armada"** in March. He would release **"WELCOME TO HELL"***,* a screamo track produced by **The Virus and Antidote**, a co-founder of Midnight, in August.

In September he would do two songs with **Kamiyada+**, the founder of Midnight: **"MVP"** (which he was featured on) and **"Give Up"***.*

That same month, Swerzie would release his second EP, ***When I Die, Throw A Party**.* This EP would be a drastic change from the boom bap style Swerzie had showcased for the majority of his career, consisting of heavy trap beats produced by downtime and dark lyrics.

The aforementioned "Give Up" would be the highlight of the EP, amassing over four million views on Spotify and SoundCloud combined. These releases would cement his place in the underground.

During sometime late this year, Swerzie and **Zotiyac** would encounter each other and become friends.

## 2017: Ice the World

In 2017, Swerzie would start associating himself with other artists in the growing underground.

In March 2017, Swerzie and Zotiyac would meet for the first time in person at **SXSW 2017**, which was held in Texas. That same month, they would release their first collaboration, **"Misbehaving"**. Yac would also collaborate with Sparks on the song **"i won't die"**.

Misbehaving would be a turning point for the two, gaining over 100k plays on SoundCloud in four months. (To date, it has almost a million plays on the platform.)

At SXSW, Swerzie would also meet many other artists in person for the first time, including Kamiyada and **Fukkit**.

In July, Swerzie started working with a New Zealand producer group called **CLIMATECHANGE**. According to him, he "had a group chat with them, where they just continuously sent him beats". CC members **Zaya**, **Sparks**, **and Foreign Taeo** eventually ended up becoming members of Icy Rotten.

In September he and downtime finally would meet in person at a show in Georgia. Apparently, downtime was only supposed to be there for a few days, but he ended up staying a couple weeks "because we kept making more and more songs", according to Swerzie. During this time Swerzie would release his first EP of the year and his third overall, ***Ice The World**.* The project was entirely produced by downtime. Later this month, Swerzie would announce the official Icy Rotten roster.

(The original Icy Rotten roster consisted of Swerzie, downtime, Zotiyac, Keadrean, ShotByReggie, Jetffrey, Shrub, Aftertheparty, and Zaya.)

## 2018

2018 would mainly be a performing year, with Swerzie doing many shows in Chattanooga and other cities.

In February he would release his first EP of the year and his sixth overall, ***Love Will Blind You**.* The EP was a romantic project, entirely produced by Keadrean.

In March, Swerzie would end up getting his first and only job as a front desk staff member at a Hilton hotel. He didn't work there for long, however.

On October 27, he released his second EP of the year and his seventh overall, ***ROTTENBOY**.* The project had more of a mainstream quality to it, and it featured production from downtime and HOUNDS, as well as verses from frequent collaborators **Apollo the Gemini** and Zotiyac.

In August, Swerzie would create the official Icy Rotten YouTube channel. However, he wouldn't upload videos to the channel until the following year.

## 2019

Swerzie would be featured on two tracks of bbno$'s *recess* album, **"doubles"** and **"bunk"**. According to Swerzie on an Instagram livestream, he recorded **"doubles"** in a airport with downtime because their flight was delayed. The song was made as a joke at first, but bbno$ liked it so much he put it on his album. Afterwards, he would get the opportunity to be a part of the **bbno$ tour**.

In February, Swerzie would begin work on his next EP, ***Rotstar***. The project was initially supposed to be released in the summer, but was delayed until the next year. To make up for this, he released a throwaway tape on his secondary SoundCloud page, **rottenleaks\*,** titled ***ROTTEN BASEDWORLD***.

In August, Swerzie would upload the first video to the ICY ROTTEN YouTube channel, which was a music video to his song **"Paris"**.

In September, Swerzie's laptop would be stolen. This would be huge, since he would lose most of his old songs. He was able to recover a few. **"Energy"** was released in November, although it was unable to be mixed since he lost the stems to the track.

## 2020

In January, Swerzie would finally release Rotstar, which included features from Zotiyac, Keadrean and Apollo the Gemini. The EP was also primarily produced by Keadrean.

In February, Swerzie would announce a **collab EP** with Zotiyac and downtime.

In March, the bbno$ tour which Swerzie was a part of would be forced to end due to the coronavirus pandemic. The same month, he would release **"Nothing To Me"**, his first official song of the year and also the first single from the collab tape with Yac & downtime.

In June, he would release **"HOLDUP",** a sort of callback to his older style of music featuring **83HADES.** The song was produced by downtime. Swerzie had previewed the beat a few months eariler.

In August, Swerzie would collab with **d0llywood1**, or Dolly, a hyperpop artist from Louisiana. According to him, this was his favorite collab he's done.

On November 21st, Swerzie's account was verified by SoundCloud.

## 2021

In January, Swerzie would release **"SHOOT THE WHOLE BITCH UP"**, one of his most anticipated songs.

In March, Swerzie announced that he was taking an indefinite break from music, citing the fact that people "couldn't keep up" with the amount of music he'd been dropping, the fact that he'd been "dropping too much", and a gradual loss of hearing in his right ear as reasons.

On April 3rd, Swerzie would perform in Dallas, Texas, as part of a show featuring rappers like NLE Choppa and Bernard Jabs.

On August 13rd, Swerzie would make his return to music, releasing a remix of his song **"Talk to God"**, this time featuring Zotiyac.

On October 29th, Swerzie would release FTW 2, the sequel to FTW, both collaborative EPs with downtime.

On December 3rd, Swerzie would release a remix of the **pinkpantheress** song **"Passion"**.

On December 17th, Swerzie would release **SAGITTAURUS SEASON**, which was a collaborative EP with Keadrean.

## Style (Musical/General)

Swerzie is a very diverse artist, and he's done almost every genre of music. However. he primarily produces trap music. He mixes the majority of his music himself using Ableton. He puts a large amount of effort into each song he makes, often spending hours on a specific part of a track.

Producers that frequently collaborate with Swerzie are downtime and Keadrean.

As far as clothing goes, Swerzie is rarely seen without a hoodie, usually *Fucking Awesome*, or some sort of coat.

## Trivia

* Swerzie is one of SoundCloud's earliest users, having posted music to the site since 2011.
* The deceased XXXTENTACION and Swerzie had plans to do a song in late 2015; unfortunately, it never ended up happening.
* Lil Wayne and Zotiyac are Swerzie's favorite rappers of all time.
* Swerzie is Colombian and Middle Eastern.
* downtime is Swerzie's favorite producer because "he makes me go harder than anyone one else," according to him.
* Swerzie has met many artists, including the majority of Midnight, Lil Peep, Fat Nick, Comethazine and many more.
* In early 2017 Swerzie got into a mini beef with Joe Budden on Twitter.
* Spongebob is Swerzie's favorite cartoon.
* Swerzie is Muslim.