The Atlanta model and artist is conquering the zeitgeist with chiselled features and zoned-out atmospheric trap experimentalism. With runway wins and an acclaimed debut album in tow, the 23-year-old dials in with designer Guillermo Andrade for Wonderland’s Autumn/Winter 26, to reflect on finding the balance, his creative community and pursuing the dream.
A lot can be imparted by a single word or phrase. Take the Instagram bio of model, rapper and artist Pz’. “Multifaceted”, it reads. It’s a factual and confident statement of intent. And suitable for the man touted to rule the runway and take the crown for his generation’s pre-eminent fashion rapper.
Born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, Pz’ (or Papayusupha Goree Njie) kicked off his life in the limelight on the catwalk rather than behind the mic. Signed in 2023 to Wilhelmina Models, he made his debut with Nigerian-British brand Mowalola at London Fashion Week in 2024. He quickly gathered steam after an eye-turning debut; the following year, he worked with Hedi Slimane and walked the runway for Pharrell Williams’ Louis Vuitton SS27 show at Paris Fashion Week.
Synchronously, in 2025, Pz’ fully entered the fray musically. In less than a year and a half – since “Keys”, his oddly smooth, idiosyncratically atmospheric official DSP debut track in May 2025 – the 23-year-old has unleashed a flurry of striking singles. In the back half of 2025 alone, he shared more standalone tracks than you could count on your hands, including viral cuts like “HEDIS BUSSIN’” and “First Date”. With quantity and quality, he quickly found an audience within the underground zeitgeist, bolstered by his looks, charm and a sound that pays homage to the trap and rage forefathers like Atlanta-native Young Thug and Playboi Carti, but is simultaneously sharply unique. There’s an added melodic sensibility to his work that’s rare to find in the genre; a pop tinge that swirls and surprises beneath the distorted synths and unpredictable beats.
Joining hotly tipped Atlanta rap collective Ø WAY alongside friends and collaborators like Tezzus, diamond* and Yung Fazo, Pz’ kicked off 2026 with the viral “ØWAY CYPHER”, leaving him poised for a major breakthrough year. And it has worked out that way so far; a further smorgasbord of eclectic singles kept momentum high in the spring, before the 20 June release of his much-anticipated debut mixtape, No Turning Back, cemented his seat at US rap’s high table: a mature and cinematic, fully fledged introduction to the murky world of the model maverick.
Pz’ is going from strength to strength, featuring on his idol Young Thug’s Slime Language 3 album and announced as support for Yeat’s Love/Lyf autumn tour. Yet still, much of who he is and what his wider vision is remains cloaked in ambiguity. Until now.
Covering Wonderland and offering his most in-depth feature to date, the interviewer for such an occasion had to be the perfect fit. And who better than Guillermo Andrade? The head of design and co-founder of label 424 on Fairfax is the brains behind LA’s pinnacle urban streetwear. He and Pz’ are great admirers of each other’s craft, and chop it up in a way only cool creatives know how – seamlessly.
Guillermo Andrade: Where’d you grow up, bro? I want to know.
PZ’: I grew up in Atlanta on the South Side [for a while], but my mom came from Africa. She moved to America, stayed in Yonkers, came down to Atlanta, and then I did what I was doing here in Atlanta. I left home when I was like 17. I was living in New York for four or five years. That’s when my little internet reign started.
GA: So, how old are you now?
PZ’: I’m 23 now.
GA: You’ve covered a lot of ground in six years, bro. Where in Africa did your mom come from? Your parents or just your mom?
PZ’: Both my parents. My mom is Gambian-Senegalese. Dad is Kenyan and Moroccan, so it’s North, East, and West Africa, all over the place honestly.
GA: When did your parents come to the States? Before you were born?
PZ’: My mom’s been here since she was like 16, that’s why she’s so hip to all this shit now. She’ll be looking on her phone, and she’s like, ‘Damn, you really going crazy?’
GA: She’s probably so stoked.
PZ’: Shit’s cool. My mom was modelling before me.
GA: Oh was she?
PZ’: Yeah, I was scrolling on TikTok a couple of days ago, and they were posting my mom’s old magazine [shoots], and I’m like, ‘Yo, what the fuck?’ I wrote ‘This is my mom’ in the comments, and they’re like, ‘This is your mom?’
GA: That’s actually really cool. Shoot the whole family too! Now I wonder what pops looks like because your little brother’s damn near your twin.
PZ’: On God. I’ve been having bro running around [with me]. We were just outside yesterday because the YSL show just finished, so everybody is in the city right now.
GA: [Laughs] I can imagine. So when you went to New York, you went for modelling, or you just moved to New York because you were like, ‘Yo, that’s where the shit is at?’
PZ’: Nah, honestly, bro, I went to New York to see my cousins. My cousins lived in Harlem, so they were taking me to Soho for the first time, and on my first day in New York, I got scouted. Literally just walking down the street.
GA: What were you wearing? I know you remember the fit.
PZ’: What the fuck was I wearing? [Pauses to think] I had this vintage varsity sweater. You know those rugby sweaters, the Japanese ones that have the elbow patches and a number on the back? It was yellow and black – on some bumblebee shit – and then, bro, [the model scout] just stopped me. He’s like, ‘Yo, you model?’ I’m like, ‘Nah,’ because I really wasn’t trying to do that shit. You know when your parents do something, you’re like, ‘I don’t want to do this at all.’ I got scouted years ago when I was a kid. I was a baby, probably 14 or 15 years old, in Atlanta, but I just never thought it was gonna go anywhere for real. But when I got scouted in New York, I was like, ‘All right, bet.’ I could turn this into something, you know? I don’t want to go back home. I’m in Atlanta, not doing shit, I might as well just jump off the porch.
GA: That was damn near right when COVID started, lowkey?
PZ’: I think it was 2021. We were still coming out of COVID. There was a period of time where it was just super this [gestures to the screen]. We were doing Zooms every day. I literally hate Zoom.
GA: Yeah, me too. I damn near flew to Atlanta just to do this shit in person.
PZ’: Bro, I fucking hate Zoom. It reminds me of online school, which I hated [laughs]. They damn near tried to give us a virtual prom, that shit was so lame.
GA: [Laughs] So what was the first modelling job then? What was the first gig?
PZ’: It’s crazy because the first job I did was with the stylist of this Wonderland shoot.
GA: Oh, no shit!
PZ’: Yeah, it was a Moose Knuckles campaign with Carlos Nazario and a few other folks. I didn’t know what the hell was going on.
GA: But hey, they definitely had a good eye, and it seems like it just found you no matter what. It usually tends to happen that way.
PZ’: I always knew what I wanted for myself from the brands I wanted to work with. Even if my agents didn’t fully get it, I was dead certain about the shit I’d say no to, ‘cause, bro, I’m not worried about them. At the end of the day, bro, I gotta take these photos. My mom has to see these shits. I want to at least fuck with it to a certain extent. That’s why I fuck with how I got all this freedom now. It’s super liberating, ‘cause I used to try to do shit because I had to do it.
GA: It’s very rare that people get to say, ‘Nah, I don’t want to do this’ and still be in demand. Also, you’ve got to see yourself in these campaigns.
PZ’: For the most part, I kept it pretty humble through the times when it wasn’t like that. But I always knew what was for me, so it’s good to see all of that coming together. Now I’m just having fun.
GA: Were you always making music too?
PZ’: I really started fucking with the music shit, like heavy, when I was in New York, because I was running around with all the 1c boys, like Xaviersobased and Nettspend. We were kicking it because that’s when everybody moved.
GA: Nett was in New York too?
PZ’: I went with Nett to one of bruh’s first studio sessions in New York. It was like a Surf Gang session with me, [producer] Evilgiane, and some other motherfuckers. I fuck with Nett, heavy. It’s sick to see what he’s built for himself. He’s really that. It’s cool.
GA: I agree. In a very different way, I find some very cool similarities between you and Nett.
PZ’: It’s just raw energy. We know who we are, we ain’t trying to sugarcoat shit for nobody, and we fuck with who we fuck with. Keep it pushing.
GA: So the music, was it in New York where it happened?
PZ’: That’s when it really started to get real. When I was in New York, there were so many people out there, and don’t get me wrong, you can make a whole lot of friends. But I had one guy that I was with every day, and he was really pushing me with that shit. I’m a very social butterfly type of n****, but I don’t really talk about my feelings, though. When I’m in the [studio] space and I’m making music, I can really get in there and get that release. Music was my lil’ homegirl I would just fuck with when I wanted to. And then my man was like, ‘Bro, you got to put this shit out.’ I already had the [fan]base based on just my style, and who knew me from where I was from and the portals that I was in. I was kind of in a position where, if I would have drop-made clothes, it would have gone crazy. If I would have made music, they were kind of waiting for where I was gonna pivot to. Music was the best way for me to build this universe that I’m in. I just really loved the music. Sonically, I’d already helped my friends with their tracklists and their albums – n****s trusting my judgement. I was doing all this shit for other motherfuckers, when I could probably do this shit my damn self. I’m a year and a half into being an artist for real – and one of, probably, the biggest in my space.
GA: That’s exactly the reason I started making clothes. One-to-one, it’s almost the same type of story. I really love clothes, and I was helping everybody start and sell their brands, and I love doing that too – I don’t have any type of ill feelings about it – but then I realised, ‘Yo, I made a lot of motherfuckers dope.’ This is cool. This is awesome. This was how I could express myself. It was literally the only way I felt the most comfortable letting it out.
PZ’: For sure. I ain’t gonna lie, you probably don’t follow that second [Instagram] page (@mynoats) I got – I feel like that’s how a lot of people found out [I did music], and I wanted it like that.
GA: Oh, you did?
PZ’: For sure. I think it was more of a ‘show you better than I could tell you’ type of thing. I know a lot of motherfuckers that’s like, ‘Hey, yeah, I make music. I be doing what I do,’ the whole time, like, ns ain’t never in the studio. I was just like, bro, I’m gonna put something in folks’ faces, and if they resonate with it, they resonate with it. If they don’t, they don’t. That’s the thing about music, bro. You don’t gotta go to the vinyl store and get into a motherfucker’s album. You can listen to anybody you want, any time of the day. So if a n mad about my shit, go listen to somebody else. It’s the same with clothes.
GA: There’s enough brands out there. Wear what you like.
PZ’: If you wanna wear my shit – if you hate my shit – go put it on. I bet you won’t hate it no more.
GA: Great timing, by the way, to fucking start dropping an album. That’s what I like about young people today. Straight up, very tactical with the internet. I feel like old heads don’t know how to use the internet like that. A lot of people would walk a Louis [Vuitton] show and waste the moment. A lot of people would close a 424 show and waste the moment, and you didn’t. That’s the real difference between people who are gonna win and people who are more focused on getting the look.
PZ’: I had a whole conversation with a bro last night about this shit. You capture a moment, and some people remember, ‘cause there’s shit going on every single day. It’s a new motherfucker posting some shit, but this fashion shit is so fucked up, bro. These kids are popping out in everything. When I was a jit and I didn’t really have no pape to buy any clothes, I was just thrifting every day with my mom, or going through her closet. ‘Cause that’s one thing, my mom was a model, but she’s also a very stylish woman. She was definitely on her shit.
GA: I mean, 100 per cent, bro. You don’t get that from nowhere. Your style, it’s definitely very specific.
PZ’: I’m very inspired by her, ‘cause she always fucked with colours, even if she didn’t want to. Just the way her shit felt, she was one of them ones. You look at that shit now, if I was a 17-year-old trying to keep up, holy shit, you gotta find your own pocket because this shit is expensive, bro.
GA: It’s so expensive, bro. I make clothes, and I’m like, ‘Bro, who’s gonna buy this? This is so [dumb].’
PZ’: But it’s all about that; when you boss up and get that piece that you wanted for ages. Even yesterday, I came up on this [brings a Raf Simons blue and red striped sweater to camera]. Bro, I’ve been wanting this sweater for so fucking long.
GA: The Raf sweater with the pocket! That [FW17] season, bro, all those little sweaters were super hard.
PZ’: I thought I was never gonna have this, or I was gonna have to be a grown-ass man [to have it]. I can’t even rock out none of this shit no more ‘cause I got a real relationship with my p. I vividly remember being in New York so popped, I would have to sell [my clothes]. I would wear some shit for three months, sell it, and there’s so much stuff that I see in the portal of the kids in New York now where I’m like, n****, that’s my jacket. I know this is mine.
GA: [Laughs] My actual jacket.
PZ’: This shit is strange because of me, n****. Like, I did this! [Laughs] I’m just not selling everything I get no more. I just want to have a really crazy closet of all the shit – even if I’m not wearing it, I want my kids to see it.
GA: So now, is it fully music? That’s the main focus?
PZ’: Bro, modelling is just a byproduct of this. Especially when you say we’re in this space now where the fashion industry is okay with there being characters. ‘Cause I’m not gonna lie, when you’re first starting off as a model, they’re not looking for that out of you, bro. Your personality? It almost suppresses that shit in a fucked-up way. When I first started off, I had freeforms, crazy freeforms. Folks used to be like, ‘Oh, you gotta braid your hair. You’re too different from what this brand is looking for.’ That’s why it’s so liberating for me to do what I do now, and be able to pull up and look however the fuck I want, and do the jobs that I love, ‘cause, bro, n****s had control over the way I looked for a really long time. I couldn’t just rock my hair the way I wanted to, or wear [what I wanted]. That’s one thing I was never on; I was never doing the all-black shit to the castings. Fuck that. I was wearing what I was wearing. Now it’s being more accepted, with people showing that they can be themselves and do whatever the fuck they want, but it wasn’t like that all the time. And I feel like that’s for the better.
GA: How did you come to the first [424] casting?
PZ’: I pulled up to the first casting just off the strength. All the homies were pulling up. I don’t think my agency even sent it to me. I was just like, ‘Yo, I know this is the one going on. This the show I want to fuck with this season. Fuck all that other shit,’ and I was just mobbing with my bros.
GA: Yes, I remember now. That’s why I still do all the castings myself because, funnily enough, I look mostly for that. It makes me sad when I see people lose themselves a little bit trying to fit in too much. That’s why when I saw you, I was like, ‘Don’t do nothing. Just come back tomorrow and get dressed.’ I can’t have somebody just show up and feel uncomfortable in the clothes, then they feel uncomfortable with the moment.
PZ’: You feel like shit when you go to a casting trying to be something that you’re not, and then you get denied. It’s like, damn, maybe if I would have pulled up on what I usually be on, they would have fucked with me.
GA: They like you more.
PZ’: I remember it was my first fashion week in France. My birthday was the next day. They sent me to YSL. It’s the butt-fuck of winter, so fucking cold, with 100 of us all just waiting outside. I pull up with this little sweater and my boots on, bro. But then we’re outside in a cold little-ass T-shirt. I’m trying to impress the casting director. He told me to walk. I go and walk, look down and get the fuck up out of there. I was so fucked up about that shit. And now, when I go to castings, because I don’t really go to castings no more…
GA: …You don’t have to now [laughs].
PZ’: That, and it’s younger kids getting scouted every day who are knowing about [me]. They’re listening to my shit in their rooms, so whenever I see them, I’m just like, ‘You gotta control what you can control in this shit, bro.’
GA: To be fair, if you didn’t have that experience of YSL, you also wouldn’t know how that goes, so it’s good to have them.
PZ’: Man, it’s a whole lot of no’s. I had some options that would have changed my life, probably, maybe, but it wasn’t for me. What I did changed my life.
GA: I imagine. So, No Turning Back [released 21st June 2026] is your first mixtape?
PZ’: Yeah. I’m about to drop another mixtape and do a few more singles. I’m finna take the whole top of next year to work on my album, starting in January. I’m gonna get a good gauge of that, and I want to do a [songwriting] camp again. Before I dropped this last mixtape, I was in Cannes for a little bit. That was my first time out there with a few German producers and my friend [model] Andi [Conteh].
GA: I remember all you motherfuckers left right after Paris Fashion Week.
PZ’: We were all out there, and I made that song with [producer] KANE [13], “Fête Feeling”, and a few other tracks that I put on my debut album, but it was just the vibe. I want to do shit like that. I’m not trying to spend my time recording my shit in a place that I don’t want to be. I’m trying to enjoy life with this shit. I’m getting all this access and free space to do what I want to do, I want to see something. Before Fashion Week this year, I slid out to Asia. I did shows in Hong Kong, Korea, and Japan. That shit was nice. I fuck with Hong Kong.
GA: When I go back to Korea, I’m gonna set it up so you can come. We’re doing something cool in Seoul. It’ll be dope.
PZ’: That’d be dope. I fuck with Korea.
GA: Me too, it’s very cool. So now it’s music, and the mixtape will come. What about performing?
PZ’: I did my first performance [at the 1989 party] during Paris Fashion Week, and then I did my friend Pax[slim]’s thing, but I did two in the same span of time. That was when I made “HEDIS BUSSIN’”. I was performing in France, and I saw folks really going crazy and singing along, and I was like, ‘They don’t even speak my language.’ I was about to go back to America and really turn it up a notch.
GA: What did that show you about how music and fashion go together?
PZ’: Music has always been a part of fashion. You look back, and there’s always been artists on the runway. It’s really nothing new. I think now there are different ways to incorporate it, and people’s tastes have changed, but this isn’t super foreign to the runway space. The designers make the clothes. After the designers make the clothes, the models do the runway. They showcase it. The people are influenced by it. They put it on themselves, and the masses attack it, based on whoever wears it. Then you’ve got your people who are just diehards. But at the end of the day, whatever music you’re drawn towards, whatever brand you fuck with, they’ve always been super engulfed with each other. There’s just a lot more artists and a lot more brands now.
GA: Culturally, it settles for sure. When a brand and a character really align, it catches on, not easily, but it does happen. Like you said, when it clicks, it really clicks.
PZ’: Exactly. At least in the generation before us, a lot of designers picked a muse. You’ve got Jean Paul Gaultier with Madonna and Lady Gaga. Some artists are gonna really align with certain brands. I think there could be more of that in the future.
GA: It’s also more rare that someone becomes a very successful model, but then becomes an artist. Usually, it’s the other way around, but for you, it’s actually been the opposite. How does that feel?
PZ’: I wanted the transition to be seamless. Super organic. I didn’t want it to look like I was put in the position that I’m in because of the people I know or whatever. I really worked for this. I’m not the first model to make music, but with me traversing the spaces that I was in and seeing my homies like Nett or Xav literally blow up in my face, you get to scheme. You get to see it for yourself. Like, damn, this shit is super possible, regardless of whatever space I come from, if I make fire shit.
GA: That’s true.
PZ’: All I got to do is hone in on what is actually happening, and that’s the music. Everything is gonna be a by-product of that. It’s definitely cool to see exactly how I wanted it to go. But I ain’t gonna lie, n**** ain’t satisfied. I’m hungry, bro. I’ve always got something to prove, and you’re probably the same way? You probably finish a show and think about the next three seasons. You’re never really like, ‘This is it.’ For me, at least, I’ve never been that way. I beat myself up.
GA: You definitely want to express yourself more once you know you can do it. It’s like, ‘Now I got the hang of it, I want to do it again.’
PZ’: You can be that one guy that’s the model-artist dude, but now I’m in a space where there’s a million other artists; you’ve got bro over here, bro over there. It’s a competitive space.
GA: 100 per cent. It’s a professional sport.
PZ’: Now you’re with the LeBron [James]s and the Kyrie [Irving]s, and you’ve got to make your mark because it’s not all shits and giggles.
GA: So, I know the big [rap] homies, but is there someone’s music you’ve always really fucked with?
PZ’: My first favourite rapper was Lil Wayne. It went from Wayne to [Young] Thug. But at the same time, I grew up on YouTube, so I was a real Vevo baby. So I’d be listening to him, and then you hear Nicki [Minaj], and then I’m seeing “Alejandro” by Lady Gaga for the first time, and I’m like, ‘Is she holding a heart?’ Like, what the fuck? That shit used to scare me, but I fuck with it so much.
GA: “Alejandro” [laughs]. That was fucking random.
PZ’: And my mom always had the radio on, so I didn’t really grow up on one singular thing. I’ve got a lot of different influences. My shit’s really all over the place right now, and I’m trying to centralise all my thoughts so I can create something. It’s refreshing. It’s new right now, but it’s something I could refine to build this world that I’m trying to build for myself, in the same way you’re doing it right now.
GA: It makes sense. You said you’re not going to stop until you’re satisfied, so what’s it going to take to make you satisfied? What’s the dream?
PZ’: I mean, I’m living my dream right now. There’s no endpoint in sight for me. How would you answer that? Do you have an endpoint for yourself, or a goal that you’re trying to reach?
GA: I spent a lot of time searching for new dreams because I was never supposed to do this in the first place. I can’t believe this worked. Personally, my biggest goal is to create the type of lifestyle where all the people around me have more opportunities because of the things that I do… So, it’s kind of never-ending.
PZ’: I kind of fall into that same idea. It’s never-ending because everything is so obtainable. As much as I’m in a space that I never thought I’d be in, in the back of my mind, I always knew what was for me. Like you said, it spirals into new dreams because I knocked that one out. I could sit here and pray to God and try to be you, be where you are right now, but I could never be you, and you could never be me. At the end of the day, just keep good, solid folks around you, and don’t fake your funk. That’s all I gotta say, for real.
SHOP WONDERLAND’S AUTUMN/WINTER 26 ISSUE NOW.
Photography Drew Vickers
Styling Carlos Nazario
Words Ben Tibbits
In Conversation With Guillermo Andrade
Hair Lucas Wilson at MA+ Group using Funner
Make-up Yadim Carranza at Art Partner
Manicurist Lauren Efron
Production Company LOLA Production
Casting Rachel Chandler for MIDLAND
Lighting Technician Nate Margolis
1st Photo Assistant Alex Kalb
2nd Photo Assistant Ashton Herman
Fashion Assistants Christopher Contaldi, Katey Kabu-Kubi
Tailor Jacqui Bennett
Hair Assistants Cody Ainey, Yetunde Egunjobi
Make-up Assistants Aimi Osada, Miki Ishikura
Post-Production Artpost
