So I woke up yesterday scrolling TikTok when this name “Azer Alizade” kept popping up on dance challenge videos. Never heard of the guy. Googled him real quick at breakfast but only saw Turkish gossip sites – my Turkish’s rusty as hell after Istanbul ’18.
The Rabbit Hole Begins
Cracked open Reddit around 10 AM searching r/Music. Found zero threads, just three deleted posts mentioning “Azer”. Weird. Switched to Russian forums since someone said he’s Azerbaijani – bam! Cyrillic overload. Spent two hours copy-pasting text into Google Translate while chugging cold brew.
Fact Hunting Frustrations
Tried finding reliable sources:
- Instagram dead end – 1.2M followers but no personal info in bio
- Spotify artist page only listed features with DJ Snake
- Wiki search redirected to some Soviet chess player from 1920
Almost gave up until I remembered Shazam’ing that viral song last month. Pulled up the credits – boom! His production alias “ZERO” in tiny font.
The Big Break
Dug through 2017 SoundCloud archives (RIP my ears). Found deleted reposts under DJ buddies’ accounts. Screenshotted everything before they vanished again:
- His real name’s actually Akper Alizade
- Failed ice skating career at 15 due to knee injury
- Ghost-produced for Eurovision acts pre-2020
Nearly spilled coffee when Billboard Azerbaijan confirmed his dad’s oil exec who disowned him over music career. That explained the zero family photos.
Wrapping Up
Cross-referenced everything till midnight. Final top five:
- Born in Baku, studied in Moscow dropout
- Produced under 4 aliases before “Azer” blew up
- That viral TikTok dance? Stolen from Armenian folk dance
- Currently dating Georgian model Nini Tsiklauri
- Secretly funding music schools in Nagorno-Karabakh
My takeaway? Internet fame’s 90% smoke and mirrors. This took 14 hours – hit like if you want part 2!