Zaya Marz Has Nothing to Hide on Her Latest Single

Jun 5

A Conversation on Feelings, Inspirations, and “In My Room”

By Calli Ferguson

photos by Leila Chaib, directed by Evan Werner

“Shout to the void / I’ve got nothing to hide” declares the cathartic chorus to Zaya Marz’s newest single, “In My Room”. Writing what she believes to be her best song yet was all about letting all the feelings flow— something the artist does best when putting lyrics to melody.

“I’m not judging myself for what I’m feeling or what I’m creating before it gets the chance to be heard or felt,” the R&B singer/songwriter told me over coffee at Bushwick’s Crossroads Cafe, just after shooting visuals for the now-released single. On “In My Room,” Marz confronts heartbreak through a smooth ballad layered with glittery textures. For an artist who has used music as a coping mechanism since childhood, the track marks the beginning of an intention to let songwriting become a raw, emotional excavation.

We caught up ahead of the “In My Room” release to talk inspirations, creative process, and feeling everything at once. Here’s how that conversation went:

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warmly: You've had a day! How did shooting your visuals go?

Zaya Marz: Yeah! So the song is called “In My Room”, and I really wanted to do [the visuals] in my room— my real room. But because I just moved, I ended up shooting it in a studio around the corner.

Basically, the vibe was lots of plants and natural light: what I want my space to look like. We did the cover photo for the song, and then short videos.

How'd you get a team together for the shoot?

I originally found this girl, Leila, on TikTok. I kept saying into my phone, “Find me a creative videographer in New York.” And it finally worked! She's super cool. We worked together for the last song I released, “I'm Fed Up and You're Full Of It.” I had this vision about destroying a cake with acrylic nails and needed a really solid team. And she pulled through. Then Evan did the color grading— I really like working with the two of them. So it was just the three of us today. I brought them back.

You released “I’m Fed Up and You’re Full of It” earlier this year. Are these separate? Or are you working on a bigger project?

So I'm trying to make a cohesive album– top to bottom, transitions, it all flows into each other… But right now, I've just been releasing singles. Because I realized that as much as I want to create a perfect, start-to-finish whatever, I also just want to keep releasing stuff! And performing, and not waiting for the perfect thing.

One thing about making an album is you put so much time, thought, and energy into it, and then once you release it… That's everything you've been working on for a year, out at the same time! So I'm trying to figure out a balance between creating for me, but also creating in a sustainable way where I can keep getting my voice out there.

So tell me about “In My Room”! What feels different about it from previous singles? And what made you want to release it next?

You know what's crazy– I do say this probably every time I release a song– but I really think it's the best song I've ever written! This time, I really mean it. It just feels very honest.

I recently went through a breakup, and it was the first relationship where I really let him into my world. The song is about waking up and looking around my room a couple of months after the breakup, seeing remainders of him, and being like, You're still living in my space. You're still living with me. I woke up and took all the shit out of my room that reminded me of him… I put it in a bag, put it on my stoop, and I was like, bye. And then I remember feeling worse. That's when I wrote the song, because I was like, Wow, what is this feeling that's lingering? And it was the first time I admitted to myself, Oh, I miss you.

So it's an ouchies moment. But sometimes I don't know how I'm feeling until I put my feelings to a melody. And then once I sit with it, I know. When I heard this song, I was like, Oh, that's how I feel.

You say you “put your feelings to melody”. Do lyrics come first or melody?

When I'm writing, somebody will usually send me a beat or a chord progression, and I'll do a voice memo, I'll hear a flow, and words kind of start to piece themselves together. Sometimes I'll hear bits and pieces of phrases, but it really is the melody that comes first.

The “room” is striking to me thematically– I think of the rooms almost as little embodiments of eras of life, or as friends. It stood out to me that the first thing you said was that this is the first person you ‘let into your world’. That's kind of what’s beautiful about grounding the song in a room, too. So can you share a bit more about your process for writing this one?

It’s funny; I was trying to play around with it when I was actually in my space, and nothing was coming to me. And then I took a trip to Boston, where I used to go to school, and I was in my old stomping grounds [from] before this relationship. I think getting out of my space allowed me to get out of my head. I was in the car with the guy who produced the song, and the lyrics came to me automatically. It was so weird. It was like I had been sitting on it– like it was ruminating. When you stop thinking about it, it comes to you.

I feel like my best songs are ones that flow through me. I don't overthink what the lyrics mean, or if there's a through line… I let myself feel, and that's really what the song is about. I didn't have to stop and think, Is this right? Because it just… was.

That's really cool. I love songwriting that way. Sometimes words aren't enough. But the melody, the music, and the production choices make it communicate.

It speaks in ways I don’t think words can. That's exactly how I think of music. It's a language.

How was the production process?

This was probably my most involved song production-wise. I had a lot of ideas about how to make my vocals hit harder.

When I first heard it with no background vocals, for a brief moment, I was like, “This song isn't for me. I need to get a belter to sing this.” That was a heartbreaking thought. I think a lot of musicians probably have a point in time where they're like, “Should I start writing for other people? Do I have the sauce, but not all of it?” You start to doubt when progress isn't happening as quickly as you want.

And then I had this idea with my producer. We were listening to it, and I was like, “I want to be able to belt it, but I love how soft my voice is. I want both.” So I did one take where I stood far back and really just belted it. And then I did one take where I sang it up close and intimate and raw. We mixed those two takes and layered them. And that did what I felt like was missing.

That’s also what the song is like: You can feel two things at once. You can feel like you miss someone, but also that they weren't right for you. So I feel like the fact that the production mirrored that same sense of ambiguity - it's this, but it's also that - it just felt so correct.

Beautiful. Who produced it?

Hassan Brutus and Farin Kautz. Farin is a producer I've worked with for two years now in Brooklyn. And Hassan is a producer I worked with when I was at school in Boston. This is them coming together… And they don't know each other, but it's also kind of two versions of me coming together.

One thing I am trying to figure out for myself is: I think as I've evolved as an artist, my sound has changed. It's probably a good thing to have a footprint of who I was and who I am becoming. But I'm starting to feel pressure to be this one thing to be marketable. I feel like one part of me is trying to lean into that, and the other part is trying to fight it at all costs.It’s tough because I want music to always be a safe place of honest expression for me. But I also do really want to find my people and my audience.

It probably takes experimenting to figure it out. Sometimes niches create themselves because you're at the center of it. You carve out your own world. Is there anything, maybe lyrically or sonically, about this song that you're particularly proud of?

The chorus says, “Shout to the void/ I've got nothing to hide”, [which] is when I'm writing from a place of not expecting an audience, just singing for myself. Shouting to the void is letting myself feel it and be honest. That's the truest version of myself. It was like admitting that to myself was the only thing that mattered.

But then, obviously, it feels very vulnerable to have this song out in the world. I had to be comfortable and okay with those feelings on my own and identify them for myself.

Any particular artistic inspirations?

I've been really big into Khamari recently. He's so fucking good. I wanted to really channel my songwriting. I've been more focused on flow because I listen to a lot of rap and R&B. So I'm often thinking about how to be creative about how I say things. Versus, with this song, it was more about just feeling through it and having more space on the beat. It's a ballad; I'm not usually comfortable writing ballads. So it was new.

How did you get into music and songwriting?

Oh, we’re gonna get deep now! It has always been a coping mechanism for me and a way of expressing myself. My dad passed away when I was younger. He first introduced me to music– he just always had it playing around the house. He was tone deaf, so I didn't get my vocals from him or anything, but I got my taste from him. And that was really important.

He was really into Maroon Five, Coldplay, One Republic, and then David Bowie, and Talking Heads. Gradually, I figured out what I was into. But initially, just singing the songs he loved and learning them inside and out was really therapeutic for me. So then I started to write my own stuff. It became my passion.

Was there a moment or a shift that made you want to release music or pursue it?

It’s actually kind of embarrassing. I had this singing account [on Instagram], and I didn't tell anyone about it at school. It's called ZayZaySings. My dad called me Zay Zay, so it was a very intimate account. But I was just like, Fuck it… I'm gonna make it public. And one day at school, somebody called me ‘ZayZay Sings’. And it turned out people knew it and were listening.

That’s very brave. Junior year in high school is kind of scary.

So scary. But I really liked how it felt to be known as a singer. I really liked the feeling of people recognizing me for what I love to do. So then I started writing and actually putting my stuff out there. Senior year of high school is when I dropped my first song. And that one was ass, but some people like it, so I keep it up.

Something's got to be the first one! And was it always the R&B genre you were working with?

It was very much indie— everything on the guitar and piano. What happened, honestly, is- because I don't have a music education- I wrote all the songs I could with what I knew how to do. That's why I turned to beats, because when other people sent me chord progressions that are beyond what I can write, I could sing so many more melodies and not be bound by what I knew.

It sometimes sucks, but mostly it's cool to need other people. You get to do so much more. I just focus on what I love to do and know how to do, and get someone who speaks their instrument.

It is so cool to need someone. What a nice way to say that. It surprised me, because I feel like you have such an R&B voice.

Thank you! I mean, that's always the direction I wanted to go. But I think it was important that I stripped it back and learned who I am.

Who else did you start listening to as you moved into R&B?

I was a big Lauryn Hill fan growing up. Amy Winehouse, too. Those were early ones. Then I saw what SZA was doing, and it was just so cool. I grew up listening to Kendrick. And I feel like I heard Kendrick and SZA and was like, “All right, I want to take the storytelling of Kendrick and the flow, and then the melodic — ugh SZA’s just so good. Everything about both of them…” And Frank Ocean.

Do you have plans for live performance? What does that look like for you?

I really want to do a live performance of this song. I'm currently trying to make a band so… shoutout R&B musicians! I've been playing over my backtracks, and it's just no fun by yourself. When I was in college, I ran karaoke at the BU pub, which was the best job ever. I had a thought recently that made me think, I can never do shows the way that I've been doing them again– I'm just doing karaoke to my songs.

Any dream venues?

So many. I really wanna play at The Sinclair in Boston. But I wanna get on the circuit here of Baby’s All Right, Pianos, The Sultan Room… that kind of vibe. Just slightly bigger venues than I’ve been playing. And one day I wanna fuckin’ sell out Madison Square Garden.

Do you have more singles in the works?

Yeah. I feel like this is just the start of tapping into whatever vulnerable, honest place this song came from. I’m ready to just keep going there.

Do you have any creative rituals around making music?

Listening to music [is] a big part of my relationship to music that I don’t talk about as much. I’m always listening to something. If I’m doing something and I can hear myself think too much, I’m like, “It’s so silent and it’s so loud.” I need music on all the time.

Something that I do is, when I really love a song, I want to be inside of it. So I’ll find the instrumental on YouTube and write a verse to it. And I feel like, in doing that, I get to connect with the artist and imagine what it would be like to be in that world with them. And really feel the song.

I love how you describe that. Is there anything you hope that people take away from “In My Room” or your music?

I guess that it’s okay to feel something even if it feels wrong. Sometimes I stop myself from even going into a conversation with someone or with myself because I feel like I shouldn’t be thinking that way or feeling that way, so it doesn’t matter. Recently, I’ve been trying to let it happen.

What I’m learning is sometimes people don’t know what you want until you tell them. Sometimes they’re not gonna show up the way you need until you let them know. And for myself… how am I supposed to move on if I’m not even honest with myself about how I’m feeling?

A wise friend of mine just told me this really cool thing about closure… we crave getting something off our chest, but usually, you already have gotten it off your chest. You’ve talked to your friends, you’ve journaled about it, but it’s the being heard part that you’re craving.

So I’m not judging myself for what I’m feeling or what I’m creating before it gets the chance to be heard or felt.

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💿 Listen to ‘In My Room’ 
📻 Keep up with Zaya Marz on Instagram

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