Tezzus and Diamond* Are Bringing Everybody With Them

“Shout out to my mama/Shout out to my bros,” Tezzus chants with an almost religious fervor on “ØWay.” Perhaps you’ve heard it: a jolt of lightning from the Atlanta rapper that has sparked a viral trend on the strength of those opening lines. Tezzus, who’s part of Young Thug ’s revamped, youth-focused YSL lineup, used the song to close out his project The Resurrectiøn . It has the uncanny energy of Atlanta rap ’s most productive era in the 2010s, when the music coming out of the city all but forced you out to the clubs.

On a recent late summer afternoon, he’s joined by fellow YSL youth squad member Diamond* at the Rolling Stone offices in Manhattan. The night before, they’d performed in Central Park as part of Young Thug’s New Generation Tour. “I brought my whole crew on the tour, you know what I’m saying?” Tezzus says. “Like, we’re building our own family.”

The two met after Diamond* drove about an hour to buy weed from Tezzus. He had clothes to sell in his car, too, and figured he might make some money on the trip. When he arrived, the place reminded him of a biker clubhouse, with friends hanging out, playing video games and talking to girls. “Just like a little get-together for the bros, for real,” Diamond* tells Rolling Stone . “So it was just cool to be around.”

The Atlanta rappers call their crew ØWay, the expression that’s caught on with their listeners. Depending on the delivery, it can be a greeting, a goodbye, or a declaration of victory.

“We so fucking awesome that the world just ran with it,” Tezzus says. “The world just love to say it so much.”

Their music has caught on, too. Tezzus followed 2024’s Tezzus Khrist with projects including Tezzy Pendergrass , while Diamond*’s Nø Idøls delivered their breakout collaboration, “Bada Bing, Bada Bøøm,” last summer. They linked with streamer Plaqueboymax on “Duality,” then included the song on their joint April mixtape, UY Scuti Bøyz . Both have kept releasing music on their own: Tezzus followed with The Resurrectiøn in June, and Diamond* enlisted DJ Holiday to host July’s Bling Slime Vøl 1 . Editor’s picks The 250 Greatest Albums of the 21st Century So Far The 100 Best TV Episodes of All Time The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time 100 Best Movies of the 21st Century

They’ve brought 14 people along on tour, and Tezzus is confident their friendships will outlast whatever happens in music. “That’s why I feel like we’re going to last longer than everybody, because we really had to grow up together, more than just getting put together to do music.”

Tezzus remembers being five or six years old, performing on his bed for an imaginary crowd. “I always told myself, ‘I’m gonna be a rapper,’” he says. His parents were teenagers when they had him. “They were like my big brother and sister, like we raised each other.” After a fight got him kicked out of school, his father picked him up and asked what he planned to do. His reply: “I’m gonna be a rapper, bro.”

His father bought him a CD player and three discs of beats. He was suspended and had lost his phone privileges. “I used to write all day,” he says. “I write raps and I studied like kings and conquerors.”

Diamond*’s father was a poet.