User:Gwennie-nyan/Zero 9:36

Matthew Cullen, professionally known as Zero 9:36, is a musician from Pennsylvania. Originally performing under the name "Zero" in the mid-2010s underground hip hop scene, he began incorporating more elements of rock music, scrapping his original hip-hop music and starting anew, appending "9:36" to his former name as part of this rebirth.

Artist biography
According to AllMusic, Cullen was born in Langhorne, Pennsylvania in 1997 and first introduced to the music industry when a 10 year-old Cullen was sampled for a relative's project. After beginning to explore hip-hop in his preadolescence he progressed to becoming an underground rap artist in his late adolescence. In an interview with 93.7 KXXR, a Minneapolis–Saint Paul rock radio station, Cullen said while his hip-hop career was developing he worked installing tile for five years, quitting his job after his music became financially viable

Career
Originally, Cullen released music as "Zero", as underground rap artist which, according to AllMusic, developed a "powerful underground following". After a 2016 mixtape "Paradise Campground" released featuring Tory Lanez, one of Zero's childhood inspirations, and Huey Mack, he gained more attention, eventually touring with Illinois rapper Futuristic. He was soon thereafter signed to Atco Records

Cullen decided to end Zero and begin Zero 9:36, changing his sound and genre as well. During the KXXR interview, Cullen said it was to make a clean break and so listeners wouldn't be confused at the change of sound, especially given his status as a minor artist, to which he mentioned Machine Gun Kelly, who made a similar rap to pop-rock transition, which he said "everybody knew".

Zero 9:36 achieved notoriety amid the COVID-19 pandemic. During 2021, Zero 9:36 toured, doing shows with Shinedown and Pop Evil.