Elemental Zazen

about

The son of international school teachers, Elemental Zazen was born in the US and raised in Al Taif (Saudi Arabia) and Beijing (China). Despite growing up in vastly different countries, Zazen saw a similar pattern of injustice everywhere he called home. Unwilling to accept a system that produces inhumane poverty and opulent wealth side-by-side, Elemental Zazen focused his fury into his 2004 debut The Adolescence Weapon - which The Weekly Dig praised as "one of Boston's most enlightened hip-hop discs in recent memory." When Elemental Zazen started working on his sophomore release The Glass Should Be Full, he envisioned the album as a political manifesto for radical social change - revolutionary hip-hop in the tradition of Public Enemy. Over the next two years, a series of tragedies in his personal life interrupted his plans and forced Elemental Zazen to shift his focus to survival. In 2006, Zazen lost a close family member in a tragic accident, and then lost most of his worldly possessions when his house burned to the ground in a five-alarm fire. The following year, Elemental Zazen (real name Jason Trefts, age 25) was diagnosed with a life-threatening tumor in his occipital lobe, which required immediate brain surgery. His new album narrates the fear, hope and anger of a disillusioned revolutionary struggling against both political injustice and personal tribulations. Elemental Zazen raps with an aggressive flow, attacking the mic with honest grit and athletic lyricism.

top songs

albums

The Glass Should Be Full

Nothing To Lose But Change

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CD2 defiant's - HipHop & Underground Rap Collection (2009) (VA)

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CD2 defiant's HipHop & Underground Rap Collection Vol. 3

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Mass Movementz

The Adolescence Weapon

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Nothing To Lose But Change FINAL

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defiant's Underground Rap Collection Vol. 3 (2009)

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Projected Vol. I

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5ve Mics Mixtape

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Whtetrashwarrior Presents: Hit

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Dez Flight Presents Rap UnderWorld (Volume 2)

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