Inside the evolution of Ann Arbor and Ypsi hip-hop

This story is part of a series about arts and culture in Washtenaw County. It is made possible by the Ann Arbor Art Center, the Ann Arbor Summer Festival, Destination Ann Arbor, Larry and Lucie Nisson, and the University Musical Society.

Will Higgs, better known as DJ Chill Will, has been spinning hip-hop as the host of "The Prop Shop" on Ann Arbor’s WCBN-FM for the better part of four decades. Higgs has become an authority of sorts ("the godfather," according to Ann Arbor-based hip-hop artist Nadim Azzam) on Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti hip-hop – and he says he’s "not sure if there’s [an] Ann Arbor or Ypsi sound."
courtesy Chill WillChill Will.
Others in the area agree that it's hard to pin down the sound of hip-hop here.

Evan "Le Dawg" Haywood, a solo artist as well as a founding member of the Ann Arbor-based hip-hop trio Tree City, says Ann Arbor/Ypsi hip-hop is "very experimental but still hard-edged."

"It's influenced by Detroit," he says, "but it's not the same as Detroit."
 
While Haywood says Detroit artists "[tend] to have a ... more stripped-down sound," he thinks Ann Arbor and Ypsi artists "have contributed a distinctly wavy, experimental, psychedelic, and futuristic sound to hip-hop – usually paired with skull-crushing drums and dizzyingly complex rhyme schemes."

Azzam agrees that there's a unique, if somewhat unquantifiable, "vibe" to Ann Arbor/Ypsi hip-hop.

"It’s the feeling of walking through the Arb that permeates all the music, regardless of … genre," he says.

So while the sound of hip-hop coming out of Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti might not be as easy to sum up as that from, say, Atlanta or Detroit, local artists agree that the scene is a singular one. We talked to local artists, from hip-hop legends to more recent arrivals to the community, about what makes Ann Arbor/Ypsi hip-hop distinct.

"A playground, and it was bubbling"

In the '90s and early '00s, says artist One Be Lo (who was born Ralond Scruggs and later changed his name to Nahshid Sulaiman), the Ann Arbor/Ypsi hip-hop scene "was a playground, and it was bubbling, and … our shit was fresh."
 
"Just about everybody you could think of came through [Ann Arbor]," says Higgs, remembering shows by Detroit legends like Eminem and D12 as well as out-of-state luminaries like Common. "They would go to Detroit, of course, but they would also stop here."

At the time, Ypsi/Ann Arbor hip-hop was dominated and defined by a handful of innovative and ambitious acts, including Binary Star, a two-man group made up of One Be Lo and Senim Silla; and the collective Athletic Mic League (AML).

AML came together in Ann Arbor in 1995, when its members were still in high school. Influenced by artists like Wu-Tang Clan, Outkast, and Hieroglyphics Crew, they released three albums over the course of a decade, after which AML members went their separate ways.
Doug CoombeAthletic Mic League, Parker Mill, 2003. 
According to Higgs, AML was "the biggest" group in Ann Arbor and Ypsilanti in the mid-'90s and early 2000s. Plus, Higgs says, he knew all about AML before they even used that name – but he’s not about to give their previous name away.
 
"I always tease them and say, ‘Yeah, y’all remember I know y’all first name,’" he says.

Over two decades later, Higgs says he still can't stop listening to AML’s "Got ‘Em Sayin’," featuring Invincible. He used to make commercial mixes for national radio, and wherever he went, from Los Angeles to Toledo, he played "Got 'Em Sayin'" for his listeners.
 
"That, to me, is one of the dopest songs," he says.

After AML decided to "take a little break," in co-founder Jamall Bufford's words, AML members held a vote to determine which member would pursue a solo career. When they looked at the results, everyone had voted for Bufford — except Bufford himself.
 Doug Coombe14KT, Invincible, and Buff 1 at Detroit Experiment photo shoot.
"I didn’t really want to [pursue a solo career], but I did it," he says.
 
Bufford went on to perform and record as Buff1, but he says he still prefers working with a group. 

"I just love the camaraderie and the collaboration and the community-building that takes place [when] working with other people," he says.
 
Bufford now serves as the director of the Washtenaw County chapter of My Brother’s Keeper (WMBK), a national initiative launched a decade ago by former President Barack Obama. Bufford says the program is intended to "counter some of the inequities that we face as men of color in the United States, whether it be educational inequity, criminal legal system inequity, or economic inequity." WMBK has notably launched Formula 734, a program that brings adult hip-hop artists together with young Black men to co-create music.
 
Bufford says his relationship to music has changed significantly over the years.
 Doug CoombeBuff1/Jamall Bufford at West Park, 2013.
"It went from just doing it for the love [of the music] to [asking ourselves], ‘Okay, how can we monetize this? How can we get on the road, sell merch, get songs licensed to get on TV shows and commercials and movies?’"
 
Now that Bufford has a full-time day job, he says, that relationship has shifted again.
 
"I just want to put out music because I love it," he says. "… It’s like breathing, for me."

Since 2022, Bufford says, AML has made an effort to reconvene for a performance about once a year; prior to that, they hadn’t performed together in nearly 15 years.
 
Asked what it was like to perform together after so much time apart, Bufford says, "It was like we didn’t even take 15 years off. … Everybody just kind of fell right back into the pocket."

"I'm gonna make it happen here"
 
When Sulaiman was coming up in the music business, hip-hop artists who wanted to "blow up" on a national level headed to New York, Los Angeles, or Atlanta to be noticed, he says.
 
Sulaiman, who had recently been released from prison, says, "I was on parole. I couldn’t go anywhere." So he says he shifted his whole mentality: "All right," he thought, "everybody’s leaving. I’m gonna stay here and make it happen here."
 
In 1994, Sulaiman had landed at the Hiawatha Correctional Facility in the Upper Peninsula on felony charges alongside his friend and former classmate Ross Rowe, who goes by Senim Silla onstage.
 
One day, Sulaiman says, he told Silla they were at Hiawatha "for a reason." 
Doug CoombeBinary Star at SXSW, 2011.
"We got sentenced to the same amount of time," Sulaiman says. "We got put on the same compound in the same correctional facility."
 
In high school, Sulaiman and Silla had formed a group called The Spooks (Spontaneous Peoples On Other Kinds of Shit). In prison, Sulaiman told Silla, "We gotta come up with a [new] name."
 
Then, in his cell, Sulaiman pulled out a dictionary and started flipping through the pages.

"I saw ‘binary digit,’ ‘binary code,’ and I get to ‘binary star’" — a system that "appears to be one star, but in reality, it’s two stars that revolve around each other," he says.
Doug CoombeOne Be Lo performs with Binary Star at SXSW, 2011.
He shared the phrase with Silla, who cottoned to it immediately.
 
"It was like, you do your thing and I do my thing, but we revolve around each other," Sulaiman says.
 
Sulaiman’s musical ambitions began well before his time at Hiawatha. According to the Metro Times, he "began writing rhymes in middle school." But in prison, Sulaiman also began a deep study of Islam that he says prompted his "perspective on a lot of things [to] change, like the way I looked at money, the way I looked at myself, the way I looked at women, the way I looked at the industry, [and] the way I looked at opportunities."
 
"I was content with being an independent artist," he says. "The simplest way to put it is that … whatever is for me, nobody can stop me from having it, and whatever is not for me, nobody can give it to me."
 
"I'm not looking for a record label to give me anything," Sulaiman adds. "I'm not looking for anybody to give me anything. I understand that my destiny is written."
 
After Sulaiman was released from Hiawatha, he says he "didn’t have any intentions" of going to Ann Arbor or Ypsi. But a friend invited Sulaiman to Ann Arbor to meet a young DJ, then a student at the University of Michigan, and Sulaiman wound up exploring the downtown clubs and meeting all sorts of local artists.
Doug CoombeOne Be Lo performing at The Blind Pig, 2005.
He says those years were full of complex conversations with students, musicians, and poets about art, religion, philosophy, history, capitalism, and social justice — and then "putting that into my lyrics."
 
"I was learning," he says.
 
Meanwhile, audiences couldn’t get enough of Binary Star. After the duo pressed their first record, "Waterworld," students from Pioneer, Huron, and Community high schools began approaching Sulaiman, offering to sell CDs for him on their campuses.
 
"These kids would come to me and be like, ‘Lo, I need 20 more CDs; I need 30 more CDs,’" he says. "… Two or three kids probably sold two or three hundred CDs [at] one high school."
 
"For me," Sulaiman says, "hip-hop starts in the community. You don't have to be a rapper to be a part of the community or to have a voice in the community, and you don't have to have a voice to have a voice. Some people speak with their bodies; some people speak with their canvas."
 
"A guest in the house of hip-hop"
 
Ultimately, the early Ann Arbor/Ypsi hip-hop scene spawned — or, at the very least, influenced — an entire generation of young artists. Younger artists often speak of Binary Star or AML with a tone of reverence, or even awe.
 
Haywood, for example, cites Sulaiman and AML as major influences. While Sulaiman moved to Egypt in 2007, raised his children there, and still makes his home in Cairo, he travels frequently, and occasionally returns to the Ann Arbor area, where he's worked with Haywood and other local artists. 

Haywood says he considers himself a "guest in the house of hip-hop," so he's appreciated learning from Sulaiman and other progenitors of the local scene. Haywood says both Sulaiman and the members of AML "gave us a lot of lessons on how to avoid some of the pitfalls of the game, and how to … be an artist in the world, and make your work, and keep it moving."
Doug CoombeEvan Haywood at Black Ram Treehouse studio.
The opportunity to mix and arrange Sulaiman's most recent album, "110 Percent Rocketship," was particularly meaningful for Haywood. 

"It was kind of a full-circle moment," he says. "… I could finally be of use to somebody who was of so much help to me."

For Azzam, now in his late 20s, the quality of talent in the Ann Arbor/Ypsi area, along with the widespread spirit of generosity and collaboration, was instrumental for his growth as an artist.
 Doug CoombeNadim Azzam performs at Ann Arbor Summer Festival , 2022.
"One thing that's really important — for anyone in life, but especially for young artists choosing this path — is to see examples of people they can look up to in their community, someone that's not out of reach," he says.
 
That means, he adds, "having influences where you can say, ‘Oh, I could do that’ — not someone in a magazine or on TV, but someone you've seen at the store."

"The best rappers in the world"

Now, Washtenaw County's younger hip-hop artists are working to continue advancing and redefining the art form they love. Haywood says he's taken to heart Sulaiman's assertion that he's not trying to compete with the best rappers in Michigan, but the best in the world.

"We're trying to be on … a level of artistry that could rival anybody," Haywood says. "That was always our ethos."

For Haywood, that means not only being a solo artist and founding member of Tree City, but also a visual artist, archivist, filmmaker, and producer. He’s also the force behind the recording studio Black Ram Treehouse and the record label Black Ram Sound. And while Haywood says Tree City is "not actively making music together right now," the group will soon be releasing a new album, 10 years in the making, that Haywood describes as "our masterpiece."
 
"I think it's going to be one of the ones that helps to define what 734 hip-hop means," he says. 
 Doug CoombeTru Klassick recording with Athletic Mic League, 2021.
Another local Binary Star and AML disciple is Ann Arbor-based Taylor Michael, known professionally as Tru Klassick. Michael was about 16 when he started performing, first in school talent shows and later in clubs. He went to Huron High School in Ann Arbor, where, he says, "I’d skip class and go to the library and make beats."
 
"Then school would get out and I’d come out to the front and play the beats for all my friends that got out of class," he says.
 
These days, he’s known as one of the best hip-hop artists of the area (every other artist interviewed for this story cited him as such).
 
"It’s an endless journey," Michael says. "You think you got it, and then you get around other people. You hear what other people are doing. You're like, ‘Okay, I'm not as far along as I thought.’ I just keep picking up things as I go. And I guess it just keeps getting better and cleaner."

Natalia Holtzman is a freelance writer based in Ann Arbor. Her work has appeared in publications such as the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Literary Hub, The Millions, and others.

All photos by Doug Coombe.