by Brooklyn White-Grier
Y’all know I ride for a poppin’ southern girl. So you can imagine my immediate interest in Kali, a 20-year-old rapper from Georgia whose single “MMM MMM” is a summer bop.
Read The Gumbo’s piece on how women from Texas are dominating rap music here.
I spotted her through a Twitter repost from Houston’s KenTheMan. The two are close friends and have posted clips of them in the studio together, possibly when working on their joint song “Ain’t FWM.”
Kali received major attention for “Do A Bitch,” which she first teased last June (the Twitter clip hit 1 million views, the music video 3.5 million) and released at the top of 2021. She then did something I thought was rather smart—she shared 3 different remixes of the song with guest verses from Rico Nasty, Enchanting and Saucy Santana, respectively. It’s always wise to capitalize on a music moment and fully gauge the success of a particular offering.
"I'm just staying true to myself and I'm seeing that it's working,” Kali said to XXL in May 2021. “I just have faith in myself if I'm gonna keep doing what I'm doing and being me. It's working. Everything should work out the way I want it to."
She’s also understandably adamant about not wanting to be compared to other women in rap, believing that artists are much more focused on making music than copying their peers. “I’m not going to the studio like, ‘I’m going to make a song like this girl,’...like, we’re not doing that,” she said during a 2021 conversation with Dirty Glove Bastard. It’s tough for women to dodge unnecessary juxtapositions with other artists, but maybe the first step is calling them out.
Kali’s sole project on streaming services, “This Is Why They Mad Now,” dropped earlier this year and garnered a pretty positive response. Clocking in at just 17 minutes, it’s a bite-sized release that serves as a taste of the rapper’s skills and ear for production.
Her most recent song is a viral joint that’s been making rounds TikTok, “MMM MMM.” Noting how the social media platform has helped turn understated tracks into Billboard-charting singles—Megan Thee Stallion’s Grammy-winning song “Savage” was an EP cut that went viral and inspired a dance challenge, while Erica Banks’ “Bussit” sparked a makeover series—it’ll be fun to track how to the song progresses.
“Can I post you on my page? (Mmm mmm)/Spend the night at my place? (Mmm mmm)/Call a broke n---a bae? (Mmm mmm)/”He gone do just what I say (Mmm hmm),” she raps over minimalist, bass heavy production. It’s generally inspiring when women exercise their right to say no and outline the traits they’re looking for in a person, which takes the quotability of the song to the next level.
With the ever-expanding landscape of women in rap swelling with fresh, innovative sounds and styles, Kali is staking her claim and letting us know how she gets down. Do we love it? Mmm hmm.
Listen to “MMM MMM” by Kali below.