Arif Zahir

Arif Zahir Lopes-Thrower (born April 15, 1994) 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. Since 2021, he has voiced Cleveland Brown on ''Family Guy,'' replacing Mike Henry who voiced the character from 1999 until 2021.

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 He originally made a YouTube channel in 2007 which focused on performing magic tricks.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" (which has over 20M+ views), 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''.

Filmography

Film

Television

Video games

Music videos

Radio

Discography

Albums

Extended plays

Singles

As lead artist

List of singles as lead artist

As featured artist

List of singles as featured artist

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Zahir, Arif
1994 births
20th-century African-American male actors
20th-century American male actors
21st-century African-American male singers
21st-century American male singers
American comedy musicians
American contemporary R&B singers
American impressionists (entertainers)
American male film actors
American male pop singers
American male television actors
American male voice actors
American musicians of Cape Verdean descent
American soul singers
Living people
Male actors from Berkeley, California
Male actors from Massachusetts
Musicians from Berkeley, California
People from New Bedford, Massachusetts
Rappers from Massachusetts
Rappers from the San Francisco Bay Area
West Coast hip-hop musicians
YouTube channels launched in 2007
YouTube channels launched in 2012