As a kid growing up just south of Atlanta, rapper Gunna, a.k.a. Sergio Kitchens (born 1993), used to practice what he and his friends called “six-month runs”: cut all extraneous spending for six months and save, save, save. The discipline and deferred gratification served him well: After spending his late teens and early twenties quietly exploring his style and releasing only one mixtape, Gunna broke big in 2016 with a feature on Young Thug’s “Floyd Mayweather”—a cosign that helped him bypass the hustle and made him one of the most sought-after new voices in the game. Later that year, Thug’s YSL label released the first of his multi-part Drip Season series, which synthesized his influences into an airy trap sound: smooth and mellow, blending spacious beats with a relaxed, highly melodic delivery and off-the-cuff humor.
Between a couple more seasons of Drip and features with Travis Scott (“Yosemite”) and Metro Boomin (“Space Cadet”), Gunna also forged a productive collaboration with Atlanta rapper Lil Baby, releasing Drip Harder in late 2018. The pairing was anointed GOAT status from a sometime GOAT himself, Future, with whom Gunna also featured on “Unicorn Purp.” Like Thug, Gunna has a thing for fashion; “drip” is his slang for personal style. “The salesmen that know me in Barneys say I smell like Biscotti mixed with Creed,” he raps on “Idk Why,” from his official 2019 debut album, Drip or Drown 2.