Zaire Brooks

Zaire Brooks

I am Zaire Brooks, a spoken word alumni and OPRF graduate from the class of 2019. On top of that I am a recording artist and have been so since 2017 initially going by the name my mother gave me until switching it to “Z” shortly after due to that being what the vast majority of my peers came to know me as. It wasn’t until may of 2018 that I decided to go by the artist name I use currently, D’zaire (desire) which felt more befitting. I wanted to have something that had the right mix of my actual name while still incorporating something artistic about the display of it all. I started recording music on an iphone and apple headphones in my bedroom as a sophomore in highschool because it was what I wanted to do. Overtime like anything that you do repeatedly, I got better at making music. I recorded on my headphones until I met one of my long-time collaborators and best friends who is a fellow artist and goes by the name of Pariah561. We met in Florida through a mutual associate of ours who linked us to each other’s music. I’ll never forget how it went down. I heard his stuff and decided to get in contact with him right away. Our first phone call lasted an hour. He invited me to his place which was the first place I actually recorded anything on a real microphone. We linked up and I stayed at his place for about a week and we made music together. After the cementation of our artist relationship I submitted some of our music to this rap competition in Miami which, long story short we were selected for the competition and we won. Then the rest was history. After all of this took place I moved out of Florida to Oak Park where I attended OPRF and PK abducted me into the spoken word club where after a while I decided I really enjoyed poetry and stuck around.

The impact of poetry and the spoken word club

I stuck around because spoken word helped me understand my craft which ultimately is rapping and song writing from angles I previously never was able to perceive on my own. The first interaction I had with Pk was when I was ignoring my history teacher’s class to write raps and he called me out about it then asked me if I had anything out, kind of mocking me. Then I played my stuff and he was shocked because he thought I was pretty good. I was pretty new at the school so I didn’t know anybody and after he heard my music he walked me immediately to the spoken word office which is where I met Pk. He greeted me with a smile but you know I didn’t know anybody so my brain was still like “stranger danger” plus school in general was already one of my least favorite places to be anyway like most people my age at the time. Either way Pk was himself and he just smiled as my teacher told him about my writing ability to which I tried to weasel my way out of accepting but it was already too late. Pk invited me to spoken word club and I was like “oh this is a poetry club, I’m a rapper” then he introduced me to Adam Levin who quickly replied “rap is poetry”. To which I still was on the fence about until hearing some of Adam’s music and after that I said to myself sure why not or whatever it was I was thinking at that time right before I went to the first meeting. Which to my surprise was pretty cool. I learned a lot about writing in such a short time and was able to relate to an overwhelming portion of the stories my peers shared during times where Pk would have people read their poems out loud. I stayed in the club and went on to make the vast majority of my friends there but most importantly after going through so many abrupt changes during that period in my life while I was changing as a person I found a place that always stayed the same and definitely somewhere I could call home. I’m sure that anybody who was in spoken word for any considerable amount of time can attest to its ability to cultivate an intense familial atmosphere which is extremely warm and loving. I know I certainly love the club and to this day would do anything to see its sustainment and betterment.

Connect with zaire music

Writing Prompts

• Write about a time you were ignored or under-appreciated

• Take a common object (like a spiderweb) and use it metaphorically

• Write about a time you really noticed something for the first time