Manchester born GZ Tian is a rising star in English music. He raised a lot of excitement with his 2018 debut single release ‘Laid Back’ and has grown a steady following who have been anticipating more from the young artist.

Coming from a musical background, his mother performed the Guzheng (Chinese harp) and a musician as a father - this gives him an all-round appreciation of different genres of music that is giving him an edge in the material he produces. 

GZ Tian suggests that Moody Kid is written about some of the people around him at the time of writing, those that might give you ‘false love’. We all know the types and we all can relate to why there would be some angst created by being surrounded by so many. With a smooth piano intro skirting around jazz chords, with building beats the start of Moody Kid is really interesting, it makes you 

question where it’s going. Then the vocal kicks in and the cool hip hop sound floods out, but with interesting flavours of other styles in the background which set this release apart and it becomes clear why GZ Tian is gathering quite a reputation. There is a smooth sung melody, then the spoken phrases that blend well to tell the story and the heavy reverb on the vocals works well to fit in the mix without losing the overall power blend of treble and middle. What is nice about the record is that the cool piano is there all the way through and shows real musical ability to mix and match the styles together with a song that keeps your head nodding, but makes you want to listen really carefully to the lyrics to unpick the message. 

Moody Kid is clever, it gives us a subject that we can all relate to, it provides music that is easy to listen to, but edgy and it proves that as a hip hop artist, GZ Tian offers something that is a little bit different that I think will make him appeal to a wider audience and really make an impact to the UK hip hop industry. 

 Hip-hop 

Author: Phil Arnold

Phil Arnold is a musician, producer and music reviewer from Devon, in the South West of England. Whilst not writing music reviews, Phil also writes and records under the name of Ugbrooke.