PORTLAND, Oregon — Rising creative, rapper, comedian and now actor in the hit Emmy-award winning ABC show Abbott Elementary, Zack Fox, hit the Wonder Ballroom stage in Portland on Saturday. The ascending musician is currently on his North American tour with gifted DJ maven Sky Jetta after releasing his EP "Wood Tip."
Spontaneous, waggish and authentic are just a few words some would use to describe Fox, known for sharing his unfiltered yet hysterical memes and skits. He's amassed a cult following on all social platforms gaining the attention of industry heavy hitters like Quinta Brunson, the creator and star of Abbott Elementary, and Grammy-winning musician and producer Thundercat, best known for his TikTok hit "Funny Thing," released during the pandemic.
KGW sat down with Fox to get a brief peek at his creative, candid world.
Growing up, Fox wanted to be a scientist, "I wanted to be like Neil deGrasse Tyson or like, Carl Sagan." He was an only child who grew up in Savannah, Georgia, to a single mother, and despite a lack of access to equipment, he showed an interest in creating music and art from a young age.
"If I wanted to make a song, I would just write the lyrics on notebook paper," Fox recalled. "And I would have colored pencils, markers and just whatever we can afford. So drawing was the most simple way to get out a lot of ideas. "
With encouragement from his mother, he went on to attend art school at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Atlanta for nearly two years, but he came to realize it wasn't his passion.
"I was like, this just isn't for me, you know what I mean? Like, I don't want to work, like, the art equivalent of a desk job. Like I didn't want to work at Pixar, Marvel — it's not to knock those places. But I always kind of envisioned myself doing my own thing," Fox said.
On the course to finding his way, Fox worked at a Jimmy John's, delivering sandwiches on his bike. The bike eventually got stolen.
"If you saw a dude in skinny jeans in 2013 running around with cold sandwiches, it was for sure me," Fox said.
After navigating multiple jobs, he got a heart-to-heart pep talk from Thundercat, initially just a friend on Twitter. The pep talk give Fox the push he needed to quit his bar job at the time and move to Los Angeles in less than a year, which opened many doors for him, from working with Thundercat to DIY-directing his hit 2020 song "Dragonball Durag" during the pandemic, amassing 25 million views on YouTube.
Going on to direct and write various projects and even illustrating Thundercat's 2017 "Drunk" album sleeve, Fox found himself getting into acting, a long-term passion of his. He took the initiative to build his craft after working behind and in front of the camera in creative, producer and filmmaker Flying Lotus' 2017 debut feature horror film "Kuso."
"I just want to be able to be in a position to keep getting better and keep practicing. So, once that happened, I was like, 'Okay, well, I'm about to study acting, like, as much as I can once or twice a week.' I started doing improv and started with stand-up more and reading books about acting, and that led to this," said Fox.
The "this" that Fox refers to is his breakout role on the NBC hit show Abbott Elementary, a comedic mockumentary following the day-to-day drama of teachers and staff at a Philadelphia public school under the leadership of a tone-deaf principle.
Fox portrays Tariq Temple, an oblivious aspiring rapper with a credit score of 380 who utilizes feminism as an excuse to have his longtime girlfriend pay for everything. Tariq's girlfriend, Janine Teagues, is portrayed by show creator Quinta Brunson.
Fox said he has no part in the writing process that brings his character to life. There are parts of Tariq he can relate to — and parts he can't.
"Tariq means well, but he just has a lot of growing up to do. And I think a lot of men in their 20s could probably resonate with that, you know what I mean? You can be very well meaning, but you just have like, a lot of learning to do — because he's definitely got some work," he said, chuckling.
He credits the show writers, such as Brittani Nichols, who writes Tariq's witty raps, and Jordan Temple, the mind behind Tariq's jokes. And of course there's Brunson providing the source material — she once dated a man like Tariq.
"Quinta was like, 'I think that you, you can do acting like for real,' like so she — a lot of these people, these are the people that like gave me, you know, my first shot, so I appreciate them a lot," he said.
Fox previously referred to himself as "physically and emotionally ashy," terms he used to describe his personal growth — the same growth that has helped shape his confidence and creativity, which he strives to empower audiences with.
"My motto now is to fail fast, you know, to anybody on the come-up. Don't try to mold yourself to be this perfect thing before you step into your creativity. You have to just, fall out of the bird's nest and go immediately headfirst into it and start failing."
Fox demurred when asked if Tariq would be back in the next season of Abbott Elementary.
"If I told you, I'd have to immediately get on a plane and run away somewhere far away, because they'd be after me. So I wish I could. I don't know. Maybe Tariq will be back. Maybe, you know, maybe he won't," said Fox.
Fox's tour runs until Nov. 22. Season three of Abbott Elementary is rumored to air as early as February.
