Tampa native and rising hip-hop phenom Zauntee dropped a full-length album on February 23, and he says listening to the first track, “The City is Mine,” is like watching the first Rocky movie. From the jump, he wants audiences to feel like they’ve been kicked in the chest.

“It’s running up the steps. It’s round for round. It’s getting back up. It’s hungry. There’s a fire to it,” Zauntee said during a recent interview.

The album, We Already Won, from BEC Recordings, features 20 tracks that pulse with Zauntee’s hopeful intensity and lyrics that resonate across spiritual and cultural divides. The title of his viral hit “Hard Work GOD First” is also his daily mantra, and every line of the song reflects this empowering mentality with lines like:

“I do this for you, you're just like me

We don't sleep much 'cause we got this dream

And we put in the work that nobody sees

We walked through the hell that nobody leaves”

The oldest of seven children, Zauntee was in high school when he chose to devote his life and talents to GOD — a decision that supercharged his motivation to create inspirational anthems for people who view themselves as underdogs, whether they consider themselves Christians or not.

“Maybe there’s a lot of people who need this music, who wouldn’t necessarily go to church, wouldn’t necessarily turn on any type of Christian song,” Zauntee said. “Visually, sonically everything we started to create after ‘Hard Work GOD First’ was really built around reaching the people that nobody else is getting to right now.”

Bold and unashamed of his love for GOD, Zauntee strives to be the artist he says he needed when he was growing up. He says he makes “music people want with a message that they need.” And that message is that they can choose GOD, and they can still win.

“It’s possible to win and to do it for GOD,” he added. “If I can leave you with one message to the next generation, it’s ‘just pick the light.’ Because if you do that, and you have the courage to keep showing up and keep putting in the work, and win but win for GOD, everything else falls into place.”

For more information, visit www.zauntee.com or https://www.zauntee-epk.com/. To stream or purchase Zauntee’s music, visit https://www.becrecordings.com/.