Ecco2k

Biography

Zak Arogundade (born 23 October 1994), known professionally as Ecco2k, is a British-Swedish rapper and singer-songwriter. 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 as a designer. He founded Drain Gang with childhood friends Bladee, Thaiboy Digital and Whitearmor in 2013. Arogundade appeared on albums with Drain Gang and directed music videos before releasing his debut solo studio album, E, in 2019. He released the EP PXE in 2021, and the collaborative studio album Crest in 2022. Arogundade is a private and secretive person who has incorporated queer themes in his work.

1994–2012: Early life and career

Zak Arogundade was born in Stockholm, Sweden, on 23 October 1994. His mother is a Swedish makeup artist, while his father is a British graphic designer, writer, and architect of Nigerian heritage. For a short time, he lived with his father in London; he spent most of his childhood with his mother in the Hornstull area of Stockholm.

Arogundade had his first experiences with visual art at age five, when his father gifted him a graphics software program and taught him how to use it; Arogundade created album covers and logos for imaginary bands. 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. That same year, Arogundade created a fashion label, Alaska, a streetwear brand. Although he was only 16 years old, he managed to develop the brand through online communication with Chinese factory managers who were unaware of his age. This experience led him to join the Swedish sneaker brand Eytys.

2013–present: Drain Gang

In 2013, Arogundade founded the Drain Gang collective, first called Gravity Boys, with childhood friends Bladee, Thaiboy Digital, and Whitearmor, adopting the alias Ecco2k. The four had been a part of the musical group Smög Boys. The name "Ecco2k" was inspired by the titular character of the Ecco the Dolphin video game series. Drain Gang signed with Year0001 and began regularly collaborating with the group Sad Boys and their labelmate Yung Lean. That 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×Hold Me Down Like Gravity5 August 2013 · SingleSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 1 track1Hold Me Down Like Gravity2:44", and "Mirage×Mirage11 March 2014 · SingleSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 1 track1Mirage1:27"; "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 the Drain Gang compilation albums D&G (2017) and Trash Island (2019). Arogundade also founded the fashion brand g'LOSS, under which he designed Drain Gang merchandise.

In 2017, Arogundade began to perform solo live sets for the first time. The following year, he modelled at Paris Fashion Week for Alyx Studio; he also appeared at London Fashion Week's "Challenge the Fabric" competition as a panelist. 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×AAA Powerline23 February 2018 · SingleSpotify (search)YouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 1 track1AAA Powerline4:12" and "Fruit Bleed Juice", with the latter receiving a music video. In 2020, 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×Pollen17 September 2020 · SingleSpotifyYouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 1 track1Pollen2:48" on 17 September, in which 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 entirely produced by Arogundade. On 19 January 2022, he released the standalone single "Amygdala" with Bladee. On 17 March, they released a collaborative studio album, Crest, which was recorded in the Swedish countryside. The Fader staff considered it the 22nd best album of 2022, while Pitchfork included it in their list of best progressive pop music of the year. After the album's release, Arogundade toured worldwide with Drain Gang in their first world tour as a collective. He left Year0001 in 2023.
On 19 April 2024, Arogundade released a collaborative single with Bladee and Thaiboy Digital, "TL;DR". He played at the Sydney Opera House on 1 June. On 14 May 2025, Arogundade released the song "MAKKA×MAKKA15 May 2025 · SingleSpotifyYouTube Music (search)Tracklist · 1 track1MAKKA3:00" with British rapper fakemink, produced by longtime collaborator Mechatok. On 12 June, Arogundade was featured alongside Bladee on Mechatok's "Expression on Your Face" from his debut studio album Wide Awake.

Musical style and public image

Arogundade is part of Drain Gang, a group of electronic and cloud rap musicians. Although Drain Gang's music is intimate, their lyrics often reflect universal human experiences, rather than specifically their own. Arogundade has maintained a separation between himself and his music, explaining that he does not see Ecco2k as representative of who he is as a person. Jayson Greene wrote to Pitchfork that Arogundade produced "dissociation music" with "numb disorientation, but with flutey, high, fairy-like voices flitting about the mix", and that he "sounds less like a human and more like a pixelated sprite". Greene added: "The immersion in smoother and more hospitable worlds than the real one is everywhere". Writing for the same website, Nadine Smith noted Arogundade's "fluttering, almost angelic falsetto". David Crone of AllMusic said that, in 2013, Arogundade's style was "rough yet original, combining distant, hollowed-out vocals with cloudy instrumentals and emotive lyricism". He added that over the decade, Arogundade "embraced technological, forward-thinking sounds taking influence from the rising hyper-pop and hyper-rap subgenres", consolidating his futuristic style with E in 2019.
Like other members of Drain Gang, Arogundade is a self-taught musician. As a designer and editor, Arogundade directs and edits most of his own music videos, and has directed and edited multiple music videos for other artists, including Yves Tumor. Commenting on his video work, he said he attempts to "express that there is beauty and magic here, but without putting special effects on it".
Despite the members of Drain Gang not subscribing to right-wing or white supremacist ideologies, their fanbase was still significantly composed of alt-right people, especially visible during the 2016 United States presidential election. However, Bladee and Ecco2k have increasingly incorporated queer themes into their work, including Ecco2k's feminine presentation in the "Amygdala" music video in 2020. The inclusion of these themes increased the visibility of Drain Gang's LGBTQ listenership and helped nonbinary, queer, and transgender people embrace their own identities. Cassidy George of 032c wrote: "Drain Gang’s ability to articulate a strain of suffering that is specific to the internet age has bred a fandom encompassing the two most extreme poles of the contemporary political spectrum."
Initially, Arogundade attempted to maintain privacy and secrecy regarding his personal life; until 2018, he kept his Instagram account private, as he dislikes making his personal information public. Although he has attempted to distance himself from Drain Gang's "obsessive fanbase", in the past, his fans have hacked his cellphone and social media accounts, leaked his music, and contacted his relatives. He commented that he found it "strange... to be such a big part of other people's lives". He has been impersonated on Facebook at least twice.