'This is history in the making': Milwaukee's lowend rap scene is finding a big audience

Josiah Gillie has his younger cousin to thank.

The University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point freshman was back home in Milwaukee for Thanksgiving when his cousin issued a challenge. A music performance major, Gillie regularly sings rock, R&B, hip-hop and country songs into his iPhone. His cousin wanted him to try something new: lowend, a surging hip-hop style developed on the city's lower east side.

Gillie's cousin searched for "lowend beats" on YouTube and bought a snare-snapping beat with a pitched-up soul vocal sample made by DDMakinHits, a teen producer from Milwaukee. Then Gillie added sonically raw, tongue-in-cheek rhymes, creating sticky vocal melodies with some drawn-out syllables. The end result was "Juicey Ahhh," a spiritual descendent of Sir Mix-A-Lot's "Baby Got Back." Gille released it under his stage name, J.P.

"I released the song on December 8, 2022 … and the song started going viral," J.P. said.

"Juicey Ahhh" ended up on a Milwaukee-centric TikTok page, 414hypehousetiktok, and it took off from there on the video-sharing social media network.

"Around 12 in the morning one night, my phone kept going off," J.P. said.

As of May, "Juicey Ahhh" had been streamed more than 800,000 times on Spotify, and more than 450,000 times on YouTube. The song's been featured on about 1,500 TikTok videos, while J.P. has amassed 1.6 million likes and more than 54,000 followers on his TikTok page.

The song even caught the attention of hip-hop superstar Lil Uzi Vert, who gave it a shout-out via Instagram Stories in January, and landed a guest feature from breakout Detroit rapper Sada Baby for the remix.

Certified Trapper is lowend rap scene's standout star

J.P. isn't the only Milwaukee lowend rapper getting a lot of attention.

Certified Trapper, arguably the standout star from the scene, has 60 videos on YouTube that each have between 50,000 and 700,000 views. Late last year, the Milwaukee rapper signed a deal with Columbia's Signal Records; he is recording and touring with fast-rising Michigan rapper BabyTron, who brought Trapper out as a guest at major California hip-hop festival Rolling Loud in March.

Meanwhile, on TikTok, the hashtag #MilwaukeeDance has been used more than 10 million times, with dancing videos fueled by lowend songs like "Same" by AyooLii, "Barkin'" by SteveDaStoner and "Rexx" by Carvie P. Beyond featuring their songs, people making #MilwaukeeDance videos frequently mimic dance moves originated by the rappers themselves.

Major music media outlets Pitchfork and Rolling Stone have also been shining a light on the scene in recent months. In December, Pitchfork’s Alphonse Pierre proclaimed that “Milwaukee was home to the most exciting rap scene of the year.”

“Every week, there were mixtapes and singles coming out of Milwaukee that didn’t sound like anywhere else,” Pierre wrote in one of several columns on Milwaukee hip-hop. That’s a fresh kind of praise for Milwaukee, where the only rapper living in the city to have a chart-topping hit ― Coo Coo Cal, with "My Projects" in 2001 — unabashedly emulated the Atlanta sound.

"I always wanted to see the city get its roses," said Elijah Rubin, a frequent AyooLii producer under the name ThatGuyEli. "For so many years … we were trying to reflect what our bigger neighbors were doing. We were biting a little bit of Chicago or a little bit of Detroit. … Lowend is a chance for the city to unapologetically be itself. It really is its own thing that the city can claim."

Lowend 'traces back to twerk music'

So what does lowend sound like?

"It traces back to twerk music," ThatGuyEli said. "As opposed to the traditional (beats on) two and four (count) on the snare … our stuff makes people want to move. There's a steady clapping rhythm. And with that metronome-style effect for the production, you can do different time signatures and push the envelope with the cadences and the flow and the sound.

"It is a very blank palette. A lot of times, the beat pushes (rappers) in a certain direction. With lowend production, it doesn't try to get in the artist's way. It doesn't give too much direction."

In Milwaukee, "even though it's the same small city with the same handful of people, (rappers and producers) are able to put their own personality into it," ThatGuyEli continued. "And the goal is to have fun, I think, more than to sound cool."

Guided by simple, effective beats and with plenty of room for creativity, Milwaukee's lowend rappers are taking listeners to places they've rarely been.

AyooLii's chaotic "Crashing Tf Out," one of two mixtapes he's released this year, throws everything into the pot from bombastic, '80s arena-rock guitar solos to emo-gone-Nintendo melodies. Certified Trapper's "All Night Flights," a standout on his debut Signal Records album "I'm Certified," takes a frequently used "ahhh" vocal sample, but surrounds it with a bizarre beeps-and-bloops melody reminiscent of a Nokia ringtone.

SteveDaStoner's "Barkin' " begins with a cheeky nod to the "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" song "Whistle While You Work," played on a cheap-sounding keyboard, en route to an ebullient roll call of ladies' names that's become the dominating snippet when used in TikTok videos.

And "Get Down" from J.P.'s debut album "No Discounts" stacks layers of distorted voices and blown-speaker beats over a festive salsa sample.

"It's so different," J.P. said. "When you hear it with a foreign ear, it's almost like, 'Am I supposed to like this?' … But when you hear it, you have no choice but to sit and listen to it and try to figure out if you like it or not. … (People are) constantly listening to a song and you're getting more plays. … And when you hear it too much, it will get stuck in the back of your head."

"Some people might think it's good music. Some people think it's not good music," J.P. said. "But all publicity is good."

Milwaukee's rap scene in search of its own sound

Another reason lowend is getting so much publicity: It's emerged during a rich era for Milwaukee hip-hop.

Over the past few years, a number of Milwaukee street rappers adopted a likeminded, Detroit-influenced sound — including Chicken P, Mari Boy Mula Mar and MT Twins — routinely accumulating hundreds of thousands and even millions of YouTube views.

From there came the breakout success of Lakeyah, who in July 2020 signed with one of the biggest hip-hop labels in the world, Quality Control, home for pioneering group Migos and one of today's biggest rap stars, Lil Baby. Lakeyah landed on XXL's prestigious Freshman Class list, collaborated with stars like Gucci Mane and Latto, even appeared on a Times Square billboard — all while representing Milwaukee through interviews, music videos, promo photos, and Milwaukee street-rap-inspired tracks like "313-414."

"It drew eyes from the industry," said Chad Roper, Lakeyah's former manager and program director of the Amplifier musician supporting program at WYMS-FM (88.9). "When we went to different parties or were in situations with label executives, people would always ask us, 'Who do you think is next for Milwaukee?' "

Other traits of lowend rap

What came next was lowend, the moniker seemingly taken from the track "Lowend" that Lil Sinn posted on YouTube in August 2020.

Beyond having a consistent beat, there are other similarities to be found in Milwaukee's almost-anything-goes hip-hop subgenre.

The songs are often ultra-short — frequently two minutes or less — better ensuring listeners will stick it out until the end before moving on.

"One thing I hate are long songs," AyooLii told the Journal Sentinel. "I don't know if I can make a three-minute song, but I know people's attention spans are getting shorter and shorter every day."

While songs are short, the output is staggering.

Last year, Trapper released a whopping 14 mixtapes, and on an episode of the "No Jumper" podcast in March, he said he films up to five music videos a day, often from the same room where he makes beats and records his vocals.

"It's very amateur," AyooLii said — not as criticism, but a point of pride. "This doesn't take three days or a week to do. It's like, 'We did this an hour ago and we posted it.' "

"It's very real … and people like the authentic side of it," AyooLii continued. "I'm trying to show that you can do it, too. I literally make the videos off my iPhone 13. … I go in the studio and make the songs so fast, in like two or three minutes. … And whatever I make that day I drop that night."

That "shooting from the hip" quality, as ThatGuyEli calls it, has incredible appeal, and so do the songs' punchlines. Beyond cranking out songs, Trapper, AyooLii and SteveDaStoner frequently post comedy sketches on their social media channels, and humor often seeps into their songs and music videos.

"It catches people off guard," ThatGuyEli said. "Sometimes they're hilarious, and a lot of imagery can be goofy and vocal deliveries can be goofy."

"I have been through a lot of (expletive)," said AyooLii, a native of Kenya who faced hardship growing up on Milwaukee's east side. "But I feel like I ain't got to be too serious. … We've all seen rappers with guns in the camera. … (Rappers in videos) don't go out there and enjoy themselves or have fun anymore. We're having fun with this (expletive)."

Lowend finds its home and fame on TikTok

These ingredients, from the strange production choices to the humor, play well on TikTok, which has become one of the key driving forces for music discovery, beginning with Lil Nas X's unexpected smash "Old Town Road."

"That's what TikTok is about," J.P. said. "The music people want to listen to is upbeat. It's not too down or too low. … You want to be light, you want to be funny, you want to be happy. …. If somebody is scrolling on a phone, and if they see you've got some good energy, even if they don't like the music, they might mess with you for the content."

One dominant element of TikTok content: dance videos, a pivotal space where lowend is thriving. Milwaukee rappers frequently post their own off-the-cuff dances to their tracks.

"To see SteveDaStoner do dance videos is so clever," Roper said. "I've seen that man do his dance with an 80-year-old woman and a 7- or 8-year-old child. … It's fun, and everybody wants to have fun in a world that's so divided."

New Milwaukee sound faces old challenges

But as with other Milwaukee rappers who came before them, the city's lowend stars continue to face challenges.

As Rolling Stone's Andre Gee noted in his article about the scene, some Milwaukee rappers "have had brushes with the law that threaten to stop this exciting scene before it reaches the visibility it deserves."

Certified Trapper said on the "No Jumper" podcast in March he did about 80 days in jail last year on concealed-carry charges (prompting AyooLii to drop the track "Free Certified").

Other circumstances have been more tragic. Big Wan, a Pitchfork-praised street rapper whose droll humor and penchant for raw production looms large over the lowend scene, was shot and killed in November 2021. He was 19.

Milwaukee hip-hop breakouts have also been hindered by the city's lack of music industry infrastructure, even compared to other Midwest cities like Chicago, Detroit and Minneapolis.

A lack of opportunities prompted ThatGuyEli to move to Los Angeles last month, where he's already collaborated with a producer who's worked with Kendrick Lamar. Lakeyah signed after moving to Atlanta.

Milwaukee isn't totally devoid of music institutions, but some of the largest ones in the city have yet to throw their weight behind Milwaukee's lowend rappers. The Rave just announced a headline show with Certified Trapper, who made an appearance at BabyTron's show there in February, while J.P. has played some club gigs and AyooLii has booked a couple of Cactus Club appearances.

But Roper said that Summerfest, for example, traditionally doesn’t book the city’s most popular rappers. He said Lakeyah has never been offered a slot, despite her pedigree and strong city ties.

"There's a reason Milwaukee is one of the most segregated cities in the world and one of the worst places for Black people to grow up," Roper said. "Summerfest is one of the biggest festivals in America, but they don't support Black music like that."

Scott Ziel, vice president of entertainment for Summerfest's parent company Milwaukee World Festival Inc., said via email that they had been in discussions with Lakeyah's team for the last few years and made an offer for her to play the festival in 2023, "but there were scheduling conflicts."

"It's surprising to hear that feedback," Ziel said regarding Roper's comment. "The Summerfest entertainment team prides itself on discovering and fostering local talent. There is nothing more exciting than being able to book a local artist and give them the opportunity to play for thousands of new fans on a national stage."

Another obstacle for Milwaukee music's success, Roper suggested, has been a "lack of unity" within the city's hip-hop scene.

Some area artists, for example, trashed Lakeyah on social media following her success. In Memphis, on the other hand, viral breakout GloRilla had hometown support and, in turn, used her platform to open doors for fellow female rappers from her city like Gloss Up.

"That is the biggest thing, to keep our support up," J.P. said. "We don't have the infrastructure other cities do, so if we all just stick together, whoever gets their foot through the door first, they can keep coming back and supporting more artists."

That's what Milwaukee lowend rappers have been doing. AyooLii said he's been releasing songs and comedy videos for about seven years, but his online views really started skyrocketing about nine months ago after he got Trapper's attention with a Trapper-centered comedy skit. Trapper posted the music video for AyooLii's "Spenders" on his own YouTube page, and it became the latter's breakout track.

"I was driving by a school by my mama's house and these kids (who recognized me) started chasing the car," AyooLii said, laughing.

"The articles are helping in a big way. … Labels are looking at me and talking about me," he said. "The energy we bring … people have never seen anything like it."

"I feel like this is history in the making."

Contact Piet at (414) 223-5162 or plevy@journalsentinel.com. Follow him on Twitter at @pietlevy or Facebook at facebook.com/PietLevyMJS.

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Milwaukee's lowend rap scene is finding a big, national audience