2DEAD BOYZ return to life on Saturday in the Park's Abe Stage

Indeed, Meechy Darko (aka Demetri Simms) and Zombie Juice (aka Antonio Lewis) will be bringing their sharp edge of macabre creative to Saturday in the Park's Abe Stage on July 4.

The duo -- better known as two-thirds (along with Erick "Arc"" Elliot) of the legendary East Coast hip-hop team Flatbush Zombies -- is best known for mind-altering atmospherics, vivid lyrics as well as the chaos their audience crave.

In fact, Meechy Darko and Zombie Juice have been representing the Brooklyn borough of New York since the two of them bonded over professional wrestling, "Dragon Ball Z" and mixtapes in the fourth grade.

"That was during the golden age of mixtapes and wild west days of sampling," Zombie Juice explained. "Between me, Meechy and Erick were always on the hunt of the craziest, most obscure piece of sound we could find."

"Yeah, that was long before everyone had every piece of music at their fingertips," Meechy said, continuing the story. "Erick and I were into movie samples while Zombie was all about the music. Every day, we felt explorers discovering uncharted territory."

"Man, it was crazy," Zombie Juice said. "We'd be trading music and burning CDs. It didn't matter if it was soul, R&B or rap. I even burned a gospel CD or two."

This experience came in handy when Flatbush Zombies released their debut mixtape entitled "D.R.U.G.S. (or "Death and Reincarnation Under God's Supervision") in 2011.

Collaborations with RZA, Juicy J as well as this year's Abe Stage headliner Tech N9ne led to releasing Flatbush Zombie's critically acclaimed debut album "3001: A Laced Odyssey" in 2016. 

A subsequent album, 2018's "Vacation from Hell" also received critical praise as did "Escape from New York," an ambitious collaboration between Flatbush Zombies and Pro Era and the Underachievers.

"Erick started branching out and so did me and Zombie," Meechy Darko said. "Then, COVID hit and everything stopped."

"Zombie and I missed making music together," he added. "We also missed being in front of an audience." 

Renaming themselves 2DEAD BOYZ, the duo revealed a connection to Outkast, whose 2 Dope Boyz (in a Cadillac)" is considered a hip-hop classic.

"Big Boi and Andre 3000 are legends and they continue to make great music," Zombie Juice said. "It's only fitting that continue to be revered. Unfortunately, there are a lot of guys who came before them. They're still in the same old houses in Brooklyn, just waiting to be rediscovered." 

Unfortunately, recording companies are making sampling harder to do

"Sampling somebody else's material used to be creating through a shared memory," Meechy said. "Recoding companies don't think like that anymore."

However., recording companies are very comfortable searching for the next big thing. It is sometime at the expense of more established artists like 2DEAD BOYZ.

"No music genre is so quick to toss out members at the hip-hop community," Zombie Juice explained. "Rap isn't just young people any more than rock. Nobody is telling Alice Cooper to get out of rock and roll simply because he's old."

In fact, Meechy Darko has coined a name for people like him and Zombie Juice.

"We're no longer the new guys and we're not quite the O.G.'s" he said. "Guess me and Zombie now get to be the New O.G.'s."