Zachary Emmanuel Schwartz is a writer for VICE ^[26], Playboy, ^[12] Rolling Stone, and other magazines. He is a primary Contributor to Countere Magazine. He first gained recognition for his writing on Thought Catalog ^[6] as well as being one of Rap Genius' most popular bloggers ever. He helped co-found the viral hip-hop app Rapchat and co-founder of LEAP, the nation's first-ever high school

entrepreneurial accelerator program.

^[9] In 2014, Zach had a well-publicized internship at Rap Genius that was covered by Bloomberg Businessweek ^[14] and Gawker.^[14]

Zach was born and raised in various neighborhoods throughout Cleveland, Ohio. ^[22] Growing up h is father was a Legal Aid attorney and his mother a judicial assistant. He is of Taiwanese, Aborigine and Jewish descent. ^[21]

He was raised in the Jewish tradition, and in sixth grade, he won the National Bible Contest, which is similar to the Spelling Bee for Jewish people. ^[21]

Schwartz has revealed that he went to the same high school as Kid Cudi. He has recalled his experience in high school as self-segregating and began to view his school's social setting through a race filter. ^[21]

While in high school, he worked tirelessly to get into an Ivy League school and in junior year he made his choice of applying for a good school. In the end, he was accepted into Columbia University. ^[27]

While at Columbia University, Schwartz began to find an outlet through journalistic projects that would allow him to express his opinions about college life as an Asian American student.

Schwartz graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Visual Arts in 2017.

While in College, and thereafter, Schwartz has been active as a writer for various publications as a freelancer.

Some of the publications he has written for include: New York Times, Rolling Stone, WIRED, Playboy, Vice (magazine), and his writing has been covered by BBC News ,The Huffington Post*,* and the Columbia Journalism Review.* ^{[6] [5]} His fiction has been published by New York Tyrant. ^[2]

Schwartz frequently writes articles on topics concerning identity, sexuality, subcultural realms, and Hip hop. ^{[28] [29]}

Schwartz also makes hip-hop music.^[41] He has collaborated with Detroit producer Michael Chavarria and 2 Live Crew Founder Fresh Kid Ice.

Through his writing projects, Zach has been able to associate with famous people in the Music industry, Tech, and world politics. He has played chess with some members of the Wu-Tang Clan; he's had a steak dinner with G-Unit; he did ayahausca in Mexico and interviewed Deepak Chopra about his experience; associated with notorious software developer John McAfee; interviewed Putin advisor Aleksandr Dugin;^[42] he has also written about the Asian men / Black women dating scene. ^[8] He has also done an AMA on Reddit. ^[16]