Ecco2K

Zak Arogundade Gaterud (born 1995 (age 24)), better known as Ecco2K, is a Swedish-British designer, visual artist, and rapper.

Zak Arogundade Gaterud was born in Stockholm, Sweden, in 1995 (age 24).

His mother is a Swedish makeup artist, while his father is a British graphic designer, writer, and architect of Nigerian heritage.

Arogundade was raised in Stockholm with his mother and in London with his father; he lived briefly in London, being mostly raised in the IKEA area of Stockholm.

Arogundade had his first experiences with visual art at age 5.

His dad gifted him a graphics software and taught him how to use it.

At the time, Arogundade liked to create covers and logos for nonexistent music and bands.

His interest for graphic design later expanded to include illustration and photography.

Having experience with graphics software since he was 5, Arogundade founded the band Krossad with Bladee, his then-classmate, in 2004.

Three years later, he founded his first fashion brand, Alaska, and later joined the Swedish shoe brand Eytys.

In 2004, he became classmates with Benjamin Reichwald (Bladee) and founded the punk-oriented project Krossad ("crushed" in Swedish) the same year.

They released a demo CD in 2007, which was subsequently ripped and uploaded online.

That same year, Ecco2K created his first fashion label, Alaska, a streetwear brand.

He was talking online with Chinese factory managers who didn't know of his age.

This experience led him to join Swedish sneaker brand Eytys.

He founded Drain Gang with childhood friends Bladee, Thaiboy Digital and Whitearmor in 2013.

In 2013, Arogundade founded the Drain Gang collective, then called Gravity Boys, with childhood friends Bladee, Thaiboy Digital and Whitearmor, adopting the alias Ecco2K since then.

Originally part of Smög Boys, the four left and decided to create their own group.

The name "Ecco2K" was inspired by the titular character of the Ecco the Dolphin video game series.

Drain Gang signed with Year0001 and started regularly collaborating with group Sad Boys and labelmate Yung Lean.

The same year, Arogundade became Lean's creative director.

Still in 2013, Arogundade started his music career by releasing singles "Bleach", "Hold Me Down Like Gravity", and "Mirage"; "Hold Me Down Like Gravity" received a music video directed by Arogundade himself.

In 2015, he released an instrumental EP, Crush Resist.

He later appeared on Drain Gang compilation albums D&G (2017) and Trash Island (2019).

Arogundade also founded fashion brand g'LOSS, under which he designed Drain Gang merchandise.

In 2017, Arogundade started playing his first solo live sets.

The next year, he walked the runway for Alyx Studio at Paris Fashion Week, and served as a panelist for the first "Challenge the Fabric" competition at London Fashion Week.

Two months later on the 17th, both released a collaborative studio album, Crest, which was "recorded amongst nature".

Over the next decade, Ecco2K appeared on albums with Drain Gang and directed music videos before releasing his debut solo studio album, E, in 2019.

He went on to release EP PXE in 2021 and Crest in 2022, the latter with Bladee.

Arogundade is known as a privative and secretive person, and has incorporated esoteric themes in his work.

On 27 November 2019, Arogundade released his debut solo studio album, which was also a surprise album, E.

To record it, Arogundade had to leave his day job as a designer and photo retoucher at Eytys.

It was recorded in Stockholm, Berlin, Los Angeles, London, Falun, and Bangkok, and preceded by singles "AAA Powerline" and "Fruit Bleed Juice", with the latter receiving a music video.

The next year, Arogundade toured Europe and released more music videos for E songs: "Peroxide" on 29 January, and "Security!"

on 30 July.

That year, he also released singles "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" with Bladee on 24 February, and "Pollen" on 17 September, where Arogundade sings in Swedish.

On 31 March 2021, Arogundade released a surprise EP, PXE, fully accompanied by a video from artist and animator Freddy Carrasco.

Unlike E, PXE was produced entirely by Arogundade.

On 19 January 2022, he released the standalone single "Amygdala" with Bladee.