Yung Gravy has never been afraid of going all out; since his 2016 breakout, the Rochester, Minnesota rapper has made being extra a major part of his persona. That might mean pairing easy-listening samples with trap beats, like he did on 2016’s “Mr. Clean,” or riffing on sex via Dr. Seuss rhymes on 2017’s “1 Thot 2 Thot Red Thot Blue Thot.” His irreverence is right there in the ’50s kitsch of his early record covers or the blonde curls and ’70s porn-star styling of his press photos. But Gravy, born Matthew Hauri in 1996, is no joke, even if wisecracking comes second nature. He’s got serious bars, a slippery flow, and a knack for dancing teasingly around the beat. He parlayed the viral success of 2016’s Thanksgiving’s Eve EP into a major-label deal, doubling down on the tongue-in-cheek trash talk on 2018’s Snow Cougar and his 2019 debut LP, Sensational. Gravy is frequently heard alongside his buddy bbno$, but he also boasts cosigns from a growing cohort of rappers not known for goofing around, like Ski Mask the Slump God, Young Dolph, and even Chief Keef, all of whom turn up on 2020’s Gasanova. His rhymes might be surreal, but he stays grounded. As he told Apple Music, he was shopping at Malibu’s Whole Foods supermarket listening to the instrumentation for what would become the saucy single “Whole Foods” in his AirPods when the lyrics came to him. “I was like, you know what? I really have met some freaky women that shop at Whole Foods. That became the whole concept.”
