Steve 'Flash' Juon“Oh shit, who the fuck’s in the cut?”
AyooLii, that’s who. “enigma” came out in 2023, but with the sheer amount of albums that are released in a calendar year, I’ll forgive you if you missed this one — so did I. It was his bio that caught my attention given how unlikely his path into rap music was. Abdi Ali was born in Kenya and moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin before he was old enough to be out of diapers. It’s probably not remarkable that someone growing up in the United States would be interested in making rap music, but Kenya to Wisconsin is not the path I would have pictured. California? Florida? New York? Definitely. I’m not hating on Brew City at all, it’s just that Wisconsin isn’t where I imagine an immigrant rap scene booming. Obviously I’m dead wrong about that.
“long road” might give you the wrong impression of AyooLii, just like I had the wrong impression of Milwaukee. You might think of him as only being an AutoTune emo SoundCloud rapper busting lyrics over Tracy Chapman instrumentals. “psych ward” is much more representative of his style. “Pop a nigga top like a can of beans.” The gunfire in the background is scatter shot and so is his delivery. He’s on and off the beat, purposefully breaking the conventional rules of rap flow, dropping punchlines like “I can mop a nigga up, call me Mr. Clean.” It’s as infectious as it is unconventional — although it does lean into the “I’m harder than all of y’all” trope quite a bit.
According to the Wired article I read about Ali, he didn’t even take the idea of being a rapper seriously until 14-15 years old. His biggest exposure came almost by accident in a bizarre video called “Day in the Life of a Gangster Rapper” where he actually seemed perplexed as to what he was doing there. I would be too if somebody who looked like me rolled up and started filming interviews with aspiring rap stars. I’m not even recommending the clip per se but I am including it below just for reference.
“Please tell me how the fuck I sound now?” AyooLii poses the question on “phones down” and I’ll answer “just fine.” He goes back and forth between the singing and spitting fluidly. The instrumental he’s spitting too is a little too muted for my liking, but it’s not poorly produced. “woah (i just made the news)” has more thump. Said article referenced above also implies Ali is bigger on TikTok than other platforms, but I don’t have a feeling that situation is permanent especially if TikTok gets banned.
“enigma” shows that there’s a budding scene of new generation artists coming from Milwaukee who aren’t playing by the traditional rules of making a name for yourself. Too many people who came up “paying dues” by begging to be an opening act for bigger names and hustling tapes out of a car trunk bitch and moan about how easy it is for today’s rappers. Actually I’d argue that it’s even harder. You really have to bust your ass in a crowded marketplace to get noticed, and AyooLii managed to catch my attention. I don’t think this is his finished form though — I think it’s larval right now and if we stay tuned there’s a metamorphosis coming.