Arif Zahir
Arif Zahir Lopes-Thrower is an American actor, musician, and Internet personality. His YouTube channel, Azerrz, has over 7 million subscribers and features voice impressions of a plethora of celebrities and cartoon characters, one most notably being Cleveland Brown from the television series Family Guy. In 2021, Zahir would later become the official voice actor for Cleveland Brown, succeeding Mike Henry, who had voiced the character since 1999 before stepping down.
Early life and education
Zahir is of African-American and Cape Verdean descent and was born on April 15, 1994, in Berkeley, California. He was partially raised in New Bedford, Massachusetts where he attended Nativity Preparatory School and Keith Middle School before moving back to California in 2007.Zahir began doing voice impressions in middle school to impress his classmates. He originally made a YouTube channel in 2007 which focused on performing magic tricks. After doing so and finding success he started attending Hussian College's campus in Los Angeles. He later dropped out to spend more time focusing on his YouTube career.
Career
Zahir created his YouTube channel in 2012 but posted his first video in 2013. He started out by posting comedic sketches, gaming videos, and videos of himself performing voice impressions of both cartoon characters and real celebrities. Zahir garnered initial success through his voice impressions which he started doing in 2011. One of the first voice impressions he did was of Cleveland Brown, whom he would go on to voice officially several years later.Zahir landed his first acting role playing a character named Arif in the short film No One But Lydia. Starting in 2018, he became a recurring cast member on How It Should Have Ended voicing Black Panther / T'Challa. Through community challenges and his first viral hit with "Ted Plays Call of Duty", Arif quickly grew his channel to over 6.5+ million subscribers and 650+ million views.
Zahir is also a musician, releasing music under the moniker 4rif. He released his debut album At Last Sight on August 30, 2019. On April 29, 2020, he released a follow-up EP titled Go Gadget/Blues Clues in collaboration with rapper Dlngqnt.
On June 26, 2020, Mike Henry, who had voiced Cleveland Brown since 1999, announced he was stepping down and believed a person of color should inherit the role. On September 25, 2020, it was announced that Zahir would be voicing Cleveland beginning in season 20 of Family Guy.
Discography
Singles
As lead artistList of singles as lead artist
| Title | Year | Album |
| "August" | 2018 | At Last Sight |
| "Summers End" | 2019 | |
| "Wonderful Miracle" | 2019 | At Last Sight |
| "Channel Lovely" | 2019 | At Last Sight |
| "Go Gadget" | 2020 | Go Gadget/Blues Clues |
| "Blues Clues" | 2020 | Go Gadget/Blues Clues |
| "Favorite Girl" | 2020 | |
| "Ignore Me" | 2020 | |
| "Cafe in LA" | 2021 | |
| "Leave Me " | 2021 | |
| "Note to Me" | 2022 |
As featured artist
List of singles as featured artist
| Title | Year | Album |
| "Hope County" | 2018 | Year 3 |
| "Drunk with You" | 2018 | |
| "Gimme Ya Lovin'" | 2019 | |
| "G League" | 2019 | DZJNTD Vol. 1 – DNT PLY |