Atlanta's New Rap Scene: Zukenee, Tezzus, Sk8star, Bby Kell, SMJ

About a decade ago, Atlanta rap underwent an unprecedented period of success. Seemingly every rapper who emerged onto the scene had a chance at national, if not global, fame. Acts like Migos, Young Thug, Future, Playboi Carti, Lil Baby, Lil Yachty, Gunna, 21 Savage, and more parlayed the mixtape-era mindset of continuous output and in-your-face marketing into enduring superstardom. Trap production—once a strictly regional subgenre of rap—bled its way into mainstream pop and country songs. Soon enough, rappers from all over the world started to sound suspiciously Southern.

The city’s ecosystem was vibrant and collaborative, and had the eyes of the industry glued on it. Homegrown labels like Quality Control were developing artists from the ground up and turning them into household names, and rappers themselves were helping family and friends get in on the gold rush. This didn’t happen randomly, though. Atlanta had long been primed for a commercial explosion, as decades of foundational infrastructure and stylistic innovation had already been laid. Joe Coscarelli, a reporter for The New York Times who wrote a book about Atlanta rap called Rap Capital, explained over the phone that a perfect storm enabled this golden age to occur.

“During that 2015-2016 moment, the sort of Soundcloud into Spotify era, Atlanta was uniquely positioned to be a boom town because of everything that had come before,” he said, speaking of the mixtape and CD eras specifically. Because of this, “Atlanta rappers were already interacting with their audiences in a way that presaged what the streaming era would require. High output, direct to consumer, ground level success, being these bright, colorful characters online, and following the hits...Often when there are paradigm shifts in the music business, it’s because the art and technology and the culture align in a certain way. And I think that’s what Atlanta had at the moment.”

Loading Text...

In the early 2020s, these good times came to an end, and a dark age emerged. Compounded by the deaths of Lil Keed and Trouble; the YSL RICO case involving the arrests of Young Thug and Gunna; and the paranoia and pent-up energy caused by COVID isolation and a spike in the murder rate, the new music coming from the city took harsh and sinister turns. The underground was effectively split into two camps: rattling Playboi Carti-inspired rage rap, and drill music defined by horrorcore imagery that aligned with existing scenes in Chicago, London, and New York.

In the rage faction, which ballooned thanks to Playboi Carti’s revolutionary 2020 album Whole Lotta Red, rappers like Ken Carson, Destroy Lonely, and SoFaygo rapped over frenetic, maximalist production in a way that usually felt too derivative of the source text. It was exhilarating when smoothed out, but sloppily chaotic and muddled when not, often showing the stripes of the producers more than the rappers.

Loading Text...

As for drill, upstarts like Baby Kia, BabyDrill, and Glokk40spaz traded in the braggadocious stylings of their predecessors for—simply put—villian music. This is not to say that trap music hasn’t had its share of grim outtakes. (Look at “Truth,” Gucci Mane’s 2012 diss track to Jeezy, where he raps, “Go dig ya partner up, n***a, I bet he can’t say shit.”) But where the trap of Lil Baby and Migos often looked back at their street lives as a way to juxtapose how far they’ve come, Atlanta drill relished in the diabolical moments that most would hope to forget.

Baby Kia employed a crackled scream to detail drive-by shootings and unload his twisted intrusive thoughts. BabyDrill’s breakthrough, “32 Freestyle,” was effectively a blunt warning to the whole city: “Name a n***a done tried this shit and survived this shit/ Every n***a done tried this shit done died and shit.” Glokk40Spaz, the most talented and deranged of the bunch, gave way to his demons while weaving through bass boosted shouts and serene auto-tune drenched melodies alike. The opening lines of his track “F**k Sum” were par for course: “The way I swing this stick, this bitch shoot rapid fire/ I wanna look you in the eyes when you die/ I wanna come to yo’ goddamn funeral, watch yo’ mama cry.”

Loading Text...

This distressed energy seemed to bleed into live shows, too. Rich Tony, the creative director of Bad Pharmacy, a media company in Atlanta focused on underground rap, said that there were back-to-back shootings at shows in 2023. These “shook the scene,” and led to a “lull period” without many regular events. (This is also partly due to COVID and gentrification contributing to the closure of many of Atlanta’s revered DIY spaces.) The one constant venue during this time was 120 Interstate, an eerily isolated warehouse just west of the city. “That venue was kind of sacred ground for us,” Tony said. It also had a legitimate security presence. To Tony’s knowledge, the “worst thing” that happened there was when “somebody shot in the air in the parking lot, just on some bullshit.” It’s where Hardrock and Glokk40Spaz had their first shows, and due to its more remote location, you had to really want to be there to be in attendance.

There weren’t many eyes on the city then—Anycia, KARAHBOOO, and Hunxho were some of the only non-Opium affiliated rappers to break out during that time—but below the surface, a new generation was quietly building its foundation. Long before receiving industry attention, artists like Zukenee, Sk8star, Tezzus, diamond*, and Pradabagshawty were honing their sounds through constant releases on SoundCloud. They all certainly pulled from past eras of Atlanta rap, but none squarely fit in with either the Opium or drill sounds. Zukenee, for instance, is a slow-paced bar dropper who is more akin to prime Waka Flocka Flame than a squealing Playboi Carti. And rather than the noir vampire aesthetics of Opium emo boys (immortalized by Druski in this skit), Zukenee is obsessed with medieval decor like swords, wax candles, and castles, even claiming to have a “blacksmith” in Atlanta.

Loading Text...

Zukenee by @oslimbo

Loading Gallery...

Right now, the tentpoles of rage and drill are collapsing, replaced by a more eclectic range of influences that remain staunchly Atlanta. This new wave calls back to early Bricksquad tapes, the futuristic swag era of Travis Porter and the Rich Kidz, and Young Thug’s more untethered Slime Season series. There’s no single formula (yet), but it’s clear that this generation is having fun again.

Loading Text...

According to Coscarelli, this shift has to do with the reality that drill as a concept has a low commercial ceiling: “I think we’re at this moment where the clouds parted, and they realized the darkness of this music—both in subject matter and in sound—can only go so far.” Zukenee agreed, saying that rappers have realized that “there ain’t no money in this [drill] business. There ain’t no n****s doing shows, ain’t no n****s getting money…But with my people, the people who are in my class, my era, I feel like we’re bringing a breath of fresh air.”

Loading Text...

It seems as if his class is rebuilding the collaborative ecosystem that ceased to exist during the early 2020s. “It’s becoming a real scene,” said Popstar Benny, a DJ, producer, and longtime tastemaker in Atlanta. “It was birthed on the internet, but [this new music] is definitely reflected in the real outside culture right now. All these up-and-coming people are throwing shows and having three, four, or five other up-and-comers on the lineup…it’s definitely back to that real underground feeling.”

The up-and-comers he speaks of are plenty. The most recognizable may be Pluto and Yk Niece, whose hit “Whim Whamiee” was all over TikTok and the radio last summer. But over the past few months, Tezzus, diamond* and their “Øway” crew have taken over algorithms with songs like “Bada Bing Bada Boom,” and a recent signing to Young Thug’s label, Young Stoner Life. It’s a catchy track where diamond*’s smooth and airy voice trades off with Tezzus’ strained delivery that at times sounds like a kid bouncing off the walls from a sugar rush. They’ve been making music for years, with Tezzus’ first Soundcloud track dating back to 2016, and have a collaborative tape set to release on April 17th, which should determine whether they’re viable as a duo, or if their chemistry was a one-off spark.

Loading Text...

Photo by @roly_viera

Loading Image...

Sk8star, who’s leading the charge alongside Zukenee and Øway, recently released Designer Junkie, the best project to come out of this scene so far. Originally from Macon, GA, he started making music in the early 2020s and has since become a remarkably fluid stylist, able to switch cadences and tones on a dime, reminiscent (according to Young Thug) of the late Lil Keed. Speaking of the supportiveness of the scene over the phone, Sk8star emphasized that his class is doing it the right way again. “For a while, if one guy in the underground popped, he’d be like, Oh I have to be mysterious, I have to cut off my friends, I have to unfollow everybody. That’s some lame shit. I feel like we’re bringing back unity. You can see us outside doing everything we say we do in our raps. The same way you saw Future and them doing it.”

Loading Text...

Photo by Armata Visuals

Loading Gallery...

Zukenee agreed, saying that a lot of rappers over the past few years were on TikTok more than in the city. “We’re bringing back real life type shit. Like, I’m gonna see Sk8 and Tezzus while I’m shopping, we might be at the club together, you know?...The artists before, they weren’t really living that life. It was easy for the masses to be like, ‘You know what? This shit ain’t authentic for real.’ But now motherfuckers really feel the authenticity.”

Loading Text...

There’s also a growing bench of others who are a song or two away from stepping into the limelight. Bby Kell, a nail tech who’s friends with some people in the scene, dropped an astonishing first project on SoundCloud last month. It’s rowdy and loose, full of ballistic, frothing flows. Pz’ has only been rapping for two years and has a silk-smooth delivery that can’t be taught. He comes from the fashion world and mainly raps about high-end brands—it’s pure ear candy. SMJ is making prime club music in line with Yk Niece, Pluto, and BunnaB, bringing old-school Atlanta shit-talking back over simple trap production. There is a laundry list of others—Pradabagshawty, Diorvsyou, 1300Saint, ApolloRed1, and the infamous Nine Vicious—with plenty more to come, as this scene is just starting to bubble. Even though most of the artists aren’t fully formed, the output is encouraging.

Loading Text...

Bby Kell

SMJ

Loading Gallery...

I feel like we're bringing back unity.

— Sk8star

The question will eventually turn to how far this new class can go. Rap isn’t as popular as it was a decade ago; there’s been a lack of new superstars, and even the ones to break out nationally are struggling to cross-over into mainstream audiences (Rob49, Skrilla, and Bossman Dlow for example). Popular culture has moved back towards country and pop music, and due to social media’s splintering of music consumption, a hallmark co-sign from a rap titan like Young Thug doesn’t go as far as it used to. In this current moment, it seems unfeasible for any of these young rappers to reach the heights of Migos, Gunna, or Lil Baby. NBA Youngboy is one of the most statistically popular artists alive, but is still considered “niche.” Perhaps the death of monoculture is making way for artists to dig as deep as possible into whatever subset of an audience they can carve out. Nine Vicious may offer the best test-case for this theory.

The firebrand, Athens-born rapper’s 2024 tape Studio Addict opened the eyes of many to this class of new Atlanta rappers. It’s a tasteful project that cribs from chipmunk soul, boom-bap, and spastic Atlanta rap alike. Soon after its initial success, he was somewhat ousted by the industry and Atlanta scene due to a controversy involving suggestive text messages to a 16-year-old girl when Nine Vicious was 19. Like a canceled celebrity who finds solace amongst far-right talking heads, he barrelled down into the headlines, responding by previewing a song in which he raps, “I know I fucked up / I admit I was horny.” On his most recent tape, he has a song titled “Listen Up Jews,” which can most generously be read as a provocation (albeit an anti-Semitic one) because the algorithm benefits that type of activity. Nine Vicious is the highest streaming rapper of this class right now, and has toured pretty consistently in 500-1000 cap venues. He seems to have captivated an audience of young, red-pilled men who are probably a tab away from manosphere podcasts at all times. It’s unlikely that anyone’s grandmother will know his name, but quite likely that he’ll get rich by continuing to appeal to the anti-woke crop of underground rap fans.

Loading Text...

Coscarelli thinks their futures could come down to a new breakthrough in technology. “Songs still break on TikTok, but it doesn’t really break artists. So, is there a new thing? Are Atlanta rappers going to figure out whatever the future of live-streaming is? What’s the next thing that’s going to break artists, or are we just done breaking artists? That’s the big question.” Prominent rap streamer PlaqueBoyMax has worked with many of these artists on his “In the Booth” series, which has helped their notoriety in internet circles, but hasn’t moved the needle much past that. It’s still quite early with the scene; these rappers are just finding their footing and starting to be heard beyond their city and terminally online rap fans. But, as Coscarelli points out, “if Atlanta has shown us anything over the past three decades, it’s that every time you think there are no more rap superstars from Atlanta, they find a way to make a new one.”

Loading Text...

Photo by Armata Visuals

Loading Image...

Zukenee, Tezzus, Sk8Star, diamond*, Bby Kell, SMJ, 1300Saint, Pz', Nine Vicious, Pradabagshawty, Atlanta Rap, Yk Niece, Pluto