Dope.Gng, brotherhood, and their latest album, Drogue Maison

The Montreal rap duo details their symbiotic relationship while making their latest full-length project

Dope.Gng is for the ragers. The Montreal-based hip hop duo, made up of rappers Zilla and Yabock, isn’t here to reinvent the rap wheel. What they are here for, however, is to obliterate your speaker system with booming bass and a smorgasbord of creative melodies that’ll stay stuck in your head for days.

Though they haven’t been around for a long time, Dope.Gng understands the importance of identity. They originally started out as Dopamine, a harmless musical project with the intent of just dropping bangers on Soundcloud. The more they continued to drop music, the more they started to take it seriously.

“We wanted to make [Dopamine] serious and a central part of our lives,” Zilla told me over a Zoom call. “We wanted to put our all into it and rebrand.”

With that, Dopamine died and Dope.Gng was born.

In 2019, Dope.Gng unveiled their first mixtape, Fiend, a low-stakes project that would showcase the young duo’s ability to rap, and more importantly, create hits. In that rookie effort, you could hear glimpses of Kanye, Kid Cudi, and Travis Scott, but really, the comparisons are surface level.

After dropping Fiend, Dope.Gng refused to stop. They followed it up with countless singles, videos, and live performances, all of which helped fuel the creation of their second full-length project Drogue Maison.

Zilla and Yabock treat Drogue Maison like their firstborn. While they still love Fiend, they went into it knowing it was just a mixtape. This new project, a much more dense and focused one, sounds like the two young Montrealers know exactly where they’re headed.

Despite a drug-heavy allusion on the album’s title, drugs weren’t actually the central theme to the project itself.

“[Drogue Maison] is actually a reference to our apartment,” Zilla continued. “That’s where everything went down. We have a home studio and everything was actually made in the house.”

With both rappers living together and creating in the same space, it was vital for Zilla and Yabock to not only be coworkers and roommates but to be brothers too. Their duality on Drogue Maison is the driving force behind the album’s cohesiveness and the chemistry they show when rapping back and forth on the album.

“When I’m making music alone, sometimes I think I need [Zilla] to come and complement it with his sauce,” Yabock added. “I make better music when he’s around.”

Dope.Gng’s symbiotic relationship is, on its own, proof that Drogue Maison is the floor and not the ceiling when it comes to their potential. They both repeatedly claim that the quality of their music stems from trust and teamwork.

“If I’m stuck with a verse or if I need a rhyme, I’m gonna ask [Yabock]. We’re a team, we’re not gonna be fighting over intellectual property,” concluded Zilla.

 

Photo Credit: Béatrice Félixe

 

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