INTERVIEW: AYOOLII
THE RAPPER STARTING MOSH PITS AROUND MILWAUKEE
Milwaukee rap is on fire right now. The most exciting part of the city’s sound is built around incessant 8th-note 808 handclaps and unhinged energy. The music is a product of a longstanding local infatuation with uptempo Southern rap, but there is a new generation of kids less concerned with history and more concerned with going crazy. These kids are simply making Milwaukee music.
One of the best rappers in this mode is AyooLii. His DIY audiovisual spirit and manic music make him a perfect complement to Certified Trapper, a singular local rapper with a major label deal. AyooLii has a pop touch and playfulness, though, that let him carve out his own space. And he goes off live. Footage from a recent basement show set up by the collective RunAlongForever looked like the best Milwaukee house show since Japanther played a Riverwest kitchen in 2004.
AyooLii has been gaining traction in all corners of the internet, especially on TikTok. His style has meme value, but it’s beyond that; it’s not hard to imagine him in the center of a Soulja Boy/100 Gecs/Duwap Kaine venn diagram. Like Certified Trapper, AyooLii releases an absurd amount of music. Since August of 2022, the rapper has put out—and this is according to Spotify but also subject to counting errors on my part—five albums, 18 EPs, and 34 singles.
Could you explain to the readers of this newsletter who don’t live in Milwaukee why the fuck people in the city are so obssessed with 8th-note handclaps?
It just brings that… It’s like our signature sound at this point, I don’t know, since I’ve been in Milwaukee—I was raised in Milwaukee, but—that’s all I’ve been hearing from the city, like, you’re going to talk about the city’s sound, you’re going to hear the claps, and it’s giving that bounce, you know? And ever since I was a kid that’s all I heard, because they used to throw these parties back in the day, and they used to do the Milwaukee dance—which, I do some of it now in my music videos—but it’s called, like, jackin’ or bangin’, whatever it’s called, but they’ll do that little dance with the beats. Everybody used to be bangin’ back in the day, it was a Milwaukee thing.
Were they playing, like, New Orleans music back then?
I’m not sure. Maybe.
Because I associate that sound, before Milwaukee, with New Orleans bounce music.
I don’t know, you know? I was young.
For sure, for sure. I’m just trying to drill down on this shit in the nerdiest way possible. You’ve done comedy for a minute, you started making shit under this name, like a year ago?
Yeah.
Were you rapping before that at all?
I was rapping for seven years, but took it seriously like eight months ago. Something like that. I was rapping and doing comedy for seven years straight, but I never dropped projects or anything like that, the way I’m doing it now.
So, that was just kind of a reset with a new name.
I didn’t have a new name. I always always AyooLii my whole life.
OK, OK, it seems like there was a flurry of activity starting under a year ago.
Yeah, I took down everything. I deleted my Facebook, I took down everything, really just erased my old shit off the internet, once I saw what was taking off on Certified’s channel, the “Spenders”—I only posted one video on there—I was like, OK, I got something started. So eight months ago, I started going ham with the new sound, because I’m still new to the low-end thing myself.
Yeah, I was trying to find old music from you but you did a pretty decent job of scrubbing that shit.
Yeah, I took everything down. Like, there’s still people asking me for my old shit.
What was your old shit like?
More like on some Rod Wave, you know, on that type of shit. That’s why, with my melodies and shit, you will hear it—I’m inspired by Certified a lot, you can hear it in the music, but I try to add my own shit, because I be inspired by Rod Wave, Duwap Kaine, a whole bunch of people.
Yeah, it seems like you kind of are inspired by Certified’s sound, but you directed it in a slightly more, I don’t want to say poppy but just, like…
Exactly, I tried to do, like, a rockstar, kind of rock, poppy, exactly. Because I grew up listening to pop a lot.
I want to talk about that “Buss Shit Down” track (featuring Renzo, Maz G and Samson2Slapped), because that one has this crazy, emo, pop punk sample on it.
Exactly. That came along with these kids I was working with, Renzo and them. I guess my little brother, they’re friends with my little brother, and they just got around me and I started working with them because I liked their energy. But yeah, Feardorian, a producer from Atlanta, had produced that beat, and that’s how that came about. And we shot that video on the iPhone. Actually, all my videos are on the iPhone. And just edited on iMovie and uploaded.
The videos are so good. That’s something you and Certified share, where it can just be, like, you in a room with somebody zooming crazy, and that’s the video. But it’s still really entertaining and engaging.
The thing between me and Certified is he’s a hard worker, so he wants his shit, you know, professional, like, it might not look like it, but he got expensive ass equipment. So, me, I just use my phone and do that shit, that’s why my shit looks like that, but his shit, like, you would not know that he’s using a camera, he’s got, like, man… Everything he did, it inspired me to do what I was doing. All I had was the phone, so I just used it, but I’m trying to get where he at, to be honest.
I’ve always been using what I got. My first phone, I made songs off the phone, they used to have this app, it was Tune-something, it was some app, and I was just making songs off of that, off the Android. It was sounding good to me, but it was so ass.
It’s kind of sick, though. This is a different style of music, but grime music from England, like 20 years ago, a lot of the beats were made on Playstations.
Bro, what?
Yeah, on these Playstation music maker programs. I think it’s sick when you grab whatever’s in front of you…
Yeah, bro, that’s the best way. That’s how you experiment. I love experimenting on my music.
One more video note: I love the “Peter Griffin” video (featuring Maz G) where you can see that you’re on Locust and you pass that Burger King. How much time a day do you spend in your car?
When I was out here, before everything, I used to sleep in there. I used to be out there all night, just hustling, and I used to sleep in the car and shit, sometimes. Nowadays, I don’t do that shit. I just be working on that YouTube grind, I saw that you can monetize off of this? I was like, OK. Yeah, just picking a different hustle now.
I haven’t lived in Milwaukee in a minute. What’s the late night food situation looking like right now? You go to George Webb?
Ah yeah, they still got George Webb and all that other shit. But yeah, late night, I’m more of a McDonalds guy, quick grab to eat and get back on the road type shit.
How did you hook up with ThatGuyEli?
He hit me up on Instagram and he said he wanted to lock it in, because he just heard about the low-end sound, and I guess he made beats and I guess that’s why we started working. I didn’t expect for it to go where it went, but I’m glad it did.
Has he ever thrown you some beats where you’re just like, What the fuck is going on here?
All the time! Most of the time, I’m like, What the fuck am I supposed to say on this shit, like “Smackin Crackin,” that’s one of the beats where I was like, “Bro, I don’t know.” Certain beats, I just don’t be feeling them, but he be there like, “Come on, you got it bro.” And I just say whatever the fuck comes to my mind. I’m like, don’t judge me, this is a no judgment zone.
So you’re freestyling over those beats mostly?
All of them. I don’t write nothing.
Sometimes I think having a producer in there, it’s key. In this era, a lot of beats just get shipped over email, but to be in a room with somebody, it’s better.
Eli, he’s like a producer, an engineer, he helps me with everything. It’s more than just making the beats with him, we’re making the whole song together, bit by bit. Like, Oh, you should try it this way, or this way. I’ve never had another producer do that.
You were just on the East Coast, right?
Yeah, New York.
You weren’t playing, though, you were just hanging out?
Yeah, I was networking. Polo Perks, Xaviersobased, you know, more people like that. You know, going out there to show Milwaukee, like, Hey, I’m out here. You gotta just do what you gotta do.
For sure. When I lived in Milwaukee, I had to tour a ton. I was more focused on that, in a way, than being successful in Milwaukee. I just wanted to be able to travel.
Exactly, and plus you gotta show people back home that you’re doing way bigger things than Milwaukee, that’s what they want to see.
What’s the rest of your year look like?
I want to focus more on the work. I want to work on not dropping too much. I don’t want to burn myself out.
Your pace is crazy.
Man, I gotta stop it.
Would you ever consider making like 30 tracks and then being like, You know what, I’m going to pick the 10 best ones and do a project. Do you ever work like that?
I should’ve thought about it like that, because how I do it, I go in and whatever I make that day is getting dropped that day.
For sure. That’s how things work now, to hold back music seems counterintuitive to how the internet kind of goes. But, sometimes when you do that, the project is strong from beginning to end. It’s hard to know what to do.
Yeah, and me, I’m starting to have a lot of songs that people actually like, some songs I just put out there to put out there, but there’s some songs where, if I were to just let it sit, it would’ve gotten much more, you know, instead of putting out another song and burying it down.
I don’t know if there’s a right way to do shit, but dropping a lot is definitely working for you. People want volume, I think.
Exactly.
You just played at Cactus Club, right?
Yes sir.
Was that your first show?
Yes, Cactus Club was my first and third show.
I saw some footage from your last Cactus Show and it seemed like some crazy energy in that room.
Man, I was so tired because I ate before that, but they just, I don’t know, they took over. It was the energy that they brought, I was so tired on the stage. Once the music came on, everybody knew what time it was, and we just rocked that bitch out. I was shocked.
It felt like a classic punk show—that place does a lot of rock shows, and the energy felt like a punk energy.
Man, that’s what they brought. There was mosh pits, all types of shit.
I think it would be interesting for you to play a show with a Milwaukee punk band.
Yeah, I should.