In 2016, Z-Ro released Drankin & Drivin in August and Legendary in November under his label One Deep Entertainment. In February 2015, Z-Ro released his first proper studio album in three years, titled Melting the Crown. Z-Ro then followed up with The Crown in June 2014. Z-Ro released his first EP under The Mo City Don titled Tripolar on August 25, 2013, via One Deep Ent.

In 2010 he released the album titled Heroin, which was followed by an album titled Meth in 2011 and then Angel Dust in 2012.

powerful' but 'relentlessly bleak' by The Village Voice and 'one of the best rap albums to come out of Houston' by the Houston Chronicle. Z-Ro's 2006 album I'm Still Livin' was released while he was imprisoned for drug possession, to positive reviews. In 2005, Z-Ro released Let the Truth Be Told, which was well received. The record was a huge success and helped expand Z-Ro's fan base beyond the South. Z-Ro released his critically acclaimed Rap-a-Lot debut titled The Life of Joseph W. Z-Ro discovered his talent of freestyle rapping and after going through a couple of recording studios to make a demo, the CEO of a local label discovered and signed him. According to Z-Ro, listening to the music of 2Pac, Geto Boys, Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, Street Military, K-Rino and Klondike Kat inspired him to work harder for his goal of leaving the streets. When Z-Ro reached his late teens he was unemployed and resorted to drug dealing and hustling on the streets.

When he was six, his mother died, and he was shuttled from household to household in search of stability, eventually settling in the Ridgemont area, a middle-class neighborhood in Southwest Houston near the suburb of Missouri City. Z-Ro was born Joseph Wayne McVey IV in Houston's South Park neighborhood on January 19, 1977.

Z ro new album drankin and drivin