To commemorate a year of their incredible album A Dog’s Chance, here’s a previously unreleased interview Olivier Lafontant did with the trio a few days after our release show.
This week marks a year since A Dog’s Chance, one of the most singular underground rap releases of the decade so far. Here are Polo Perks, AyooLii, and FearDorian aligning at the right place and the right time for something only they could make. This strange mesh of internet microculture, American indie, and the Black diaspora will never fully make sense when you talk about it out loud. You kinda just listen and let it happen until you look back in awe years later like, Damn, what were these dudes actually on? I mean, who else would even think to add lowend claps to a Carissa’s Wierd song? Do niggas even listen to Carissa’s Wierd? – Olivier
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The sun’s still out past 7 pm on Go Skate Day, which means summertime is in effect and it’s humid and everybody outside wears a top that clings to sweat-sopped skin. Outside of Substance Skatepark in Brooklyn, I wait in line with rap critics, X mutuals, Redditors, and SoundCloud alley cats. Not because any of us can skate, but because of A Dog’s Chance. Here No Bells hosts a free album release party for internet rap’s little piece of scorigami: a body of work so improbable, so inconceivable, that when you take a look at the cover and press play on track one, you wonder to yourself, Yo, how did we even get here?
The cast of characters: 29-year-old rapper Polo Perks, a Harlem-born, Connecticut-raised journeyman now far removed from his days of starting at the 5 for Surf Gang University. Then there’s 23-year-old AyooLii, a Milwaukee-bred rap game Tasmanian Devil who makes Instagram skits with Cartier buffs on in his free time. Behind the boards is 18-year-old FearDorian, a precocious beatsmith from Atlanta whose talent and benevolence bridged the trio together. An organic mesh of their individual styles, A Dog’s Chance allows for alternative sample flips to live comfortably in Milwaukee lowend, giving Polo, Lii, and Dorian the space to find synergy in controlled chaos. Between heartrending indie balladry and Hot 100 classics, the samples at work contort into head-thumping, gold-encrusted flex music.
For the release party, there’s a makeshift stage on the half pipe at the heart of Substance, allowing attendees to climb up and dangle their feet off the ledges or stand together on the flat surface. Opening sets from Cr1tter, Quinn, and Baby Osama build momentum as the crowd gets drunk off of sweat and body heat, growing more rapturous with time.
During Polo, Lii and Dorian’s joint set, I start to grapple with the strange balance A Dog’s Chance finds between somber introspection and teeth-gritting ecstasy. When Polo’s coolheaded opening verse on “Rainbow” gives way to Lii’s zany follow-up, the ensuing drums are hard enough to knock the wind out of me. Suddenly my soul hardens, my face scrunches up, and I regain enough energy to fall into the chaos happening around me. I end up with my arm around the shoulders of Dylan Green, trotting rhythmically with my teeth bared, hanging onto him for dear life. By the time the trio closes with “Ricky Eats Acid,” I find myself jumping in the pit beside Polo and Dorian, joyously yelling the lyrics back at them.
I reconvene with a fatigued Polo, Lii, and Dorian a couple days later on Bedford Ave and N 8 St, sitting right across from Williamsburg’s Sweet Chick. The differences in demeanor between each of them are subtle but telling: FearDorian the fresh-faced little brother, eager to divulge into his interests; AyooLii the surprisingly cagey jester; and Polo Perks the protective elder statesman, quick to prop up his brothers. Across 45 minutes, the four of us discuss the natural development of A Dog’s Chance, the importance of knowing your worth, and what it means to respectfully adopt a regional sound.
Olivier Lafontant: I know all three of y’all are coming from different places, and you have different perspectives on New York, [Polo Perks] especially. But just generally speaking, how do y’all feel being in the city after your performance from a couple days ago?
Polo Perks: Tired. Wish we had done this before.
Yeah?
Polo Perks: If the PR run was before then the show would’ve just been the last finale.
FearDorian: Nah, literally! Now we gotta do it all after. Every time I come here, I feel like I’ll be like, “Oh, I’m [getting used to] it!” But nah, every time I’m out here it just feels crazy ’cause things are sooooo slow in Atlanta. So coming out here, doing a show, I don’t think I’ll ever get used to it. It just feels crazy. But it’s cool though. I like it as well. Definitely a change of scenery.
How about you, Lii?
AyooLii: It’s amazing, you know? New environment and shit, different cultures all around me and shit.
When you guys were recording A Dog’s Chance, how did it come together in person? I know you guys met up in different ways through the internet, but when you were actually recording in the same house, what was that dynamic like?
Polo Perks: Just easy, foreal foreal. Nothing to put pressure on or anything like that.
FearDorian: It’s kind of like a wheel. I would make the beat, Polo would start or Lii would start. While they’re recording, I’m making another beat. We’re kinda just exchanging.
What was it that made y’all realize you guys had a connection outside of the music?
FearDorian: When you work with certain people, it’s ulterior motives, people are being weird. It’s not really genuine…
AyooLii: Egos.
FearDorian: …but [Polo and Lii] feel like my family, you know what I mean? It feels like my literal family at work. I think that’s what sets the difference [between] working with certain people and when I’m working with them.
What would y’all do outside of recording to bond?
Polo Perks: Record.
That’s all y’all would do? [laughs]
Polo Perks: That’s all we do.
FearDorian: Get some eats.
Polo Perks: That’s it. We recorded so many songs that didn’t make this tape. And even with the songs that didn’t make this tape, there’s so many songs that [were going to make it], and then in the last four days they didn’t. We just needed to make the best of the sound.
What went into that selection? I know one thing that probably was a problem was sample clearances in the first place, but how did y’all cut the tracklist down to where you got it to?
Polo Perks: I had reached out to [Sam Ray of Teen Suicide] and I was waiting, and I had to reach out to him again around the time we had already snippetted “Ricky Eats Acid.” He fucked with it and he was a genuine person so he let us rock. Then Dorian and Nick met.
FearDorian: I met Nick [of] Current Joys. One day I had just followed him on Instagram, and I took a nap and after I woke up, I saw he had followed me back. I’m like, “What the fuck!” Because I grew up on his music and shit. So I’m like, this is crazy. I DM’d him––I ain’t gon lie, I waited like a day. I was fanning out––
You had to play it cool!
FearDorian: Yeah I had to play it cool! I waited like a day, I was like, “Yo bro, you’re the goat.” I don’t even know if I asked to make music immediately then, but I was just letting him know I fucked with him. But then we started talking about making music together and we made a few [remixes]. He sent me stems to like songs he had before and shit.
Wild Heart is such a sentimental album for me.
FearDorian: Bro that shit is crazy, nah literally. I wasn’t ever gonna think about sampling “New Flesh” because it’s one of his biggest songs, if not the biggest song. But one day, we had been working for maybe like a week or two, and he was like, “Yo, you should sample ‘New Flesh.’” I was like, “What?”
Polo Perks: Dorian hit me automatically like “He dead said we could sample ‘New Flesh.’” Me being [a pessimist], I’m like “He ain’t gon clear it, he ain’t gon clear it. That’s his hit, we gotta snap!” I get back to Atlanta and it was me, [Dorian], and the other homies, and I was like “Yo, I’m gonna record this right now.” We went through it and halfway through the song and I was like “Ah! Do I want to keep going? I gotta really truly commit to this song. I don’t wanna commit to this and not get the clearance.”
FearDorian: And then he did. And niggas got a video!
I know Polo and Dorian have a strong relationship when it comes to alternative music, but for you, Lii, did you have those same influences? Or was it kinda like “I’ma hop on whatever beats y’all wanna make”?
AyooLii: Basically, yeah. I ain’t on none of the shit that they be on, no bullshit. But it be sounding fire, so [I like] whatever he makes that sounds good.
So what’d you really grow up listening to?
AyooLii: I grew up listening to pop music, foreal. Like Katy Perry, all them and shit. Ed Sheeran. And then I heard Lil Wayne and became a hip-hop fan.
With you, Dorian, incorporating Milwaukee lowend into your sound while being from Atlanta—what was your attitude toward that at first? In the interview that y’all had with Mano, Polo made the point of there being a level of respect that you gotta come into it with as an outsider. That’s why he made the point of waiting to collab with Lii before adopting the sound. But what was your perspective on that?
FearDorian: Well, this was music that I was always listening to ’cause of my sister really. Both of my sisters put me onto a lot of swag ’cause they’re older than me. I’m the youngest child. Now I’m finding my own music through the music that they put me on, and now I’m able to incorporate this sound ’cause it’s a part of me. It’s not like I saw a wave and I’m like, ‘Oh, damn let me get on that.’ It’s like, it had always been around me, but now I’m able to incorporate it into the sound that I already had.
Also another part of that interview highlighted you going from being a dancer to being a producer. Do you feel like that was like a natural progression?
FearDorian: Yeah, ’cause I knew I wanted to be involved with music, I just didn’t really know where to start. So from dancing to making music, it was like a bridge ’cause I had met all these people off doing dancing.
AyooLii: You used to dance? Me too bro!
FearDorian: That’s crazy! I had made all these connections with these people off the dance thing.
You were mad young too.
FearDorian: Yeah, I was like 11, 12. At first, it wasn’t a smooth transition. Everyone knew me from dancing, so when I was like, “Alright, I’m done with this dancing shit.” Took all the videos off my page. It was like, “What the fuck?” People was like, “What are you doing? Get back to dancing!” Niggas was literally telling me to get back to dancing.
Do you make music with the intention of getting people to dance?
FearDorian: Yeah, even with my [self-titled] album, a lot of the shit is pretty melancholy. But performing it, you get to see how people actually move to it. I make music with a certain vibe, like the melancholy shit, but also you’re able to still be able to turn up to it at the same time.
There’s a couple songs on the album like “Breeshwrld” and “Backpack” where you listen to the songwriting and production and it’s kinda mellow, but there is that balance when you see it live and people are pushing and shoving each other.
FearDorian: But you can also sit and listen to it.
Polo Perks: You and everyone that was in that room [for the listening party] is the audience that has not been thought about or even cared to be curated to properly for probably two years, three years, maybe even more. I don’t even wanna sit here and say I’m holding up that sound, or that we’re holding up that sound together, ‘cause there’s multiple other artists that try to do it. But I feel like it doesn’t reach the volumes that we reach. We’re not doing the whole big, hyped-up, boosted numbers and stuff like that, but you still see how real this is.
Yeah, exactly. I was so turnt when I heard Punk Goes Drill for the first time with the “Maps” remix and “Mr. Brightside” ’cause that was also around the same time I was getting into [alternative rock] altogether. Polo, how did that dynamic change for you, going from being with producers with a New York-adjacent style of production to Dorian doing his own take on Milwaukee production?
Polo Perks: The one thing that I wanted to show with this project was that the sound that you heard, no matter who it’s with, is Polo’s sound. You know the difference from all the beats that’s been made in this whole wave, [compared] to what the fuck [Dorian] done put blood, sweat and tears into. I don’t really think it’s about the producer, it’s really who you are as a person. Even in the Mano interview for No Bells, I said this has been more fun than making Punk Goes Drill, just because of the simple fact that I’m working with somebody so much younger than me, and I’m learning in the process at the same time as I’m teaching! This can never be compared to anything that I’ve done.
Between the three of y’all making this album, what is it that you think you’ve learned the most?
Polo Perks: Patience, for real. You know I’ve worked on compilation projects and stuff, but I’ve never worked on an album where everyone was involved on each track. In this situation we were all fully invested. Yeah, I could call Lii at any time, maybe he’ll be annoyed, but he’s gonna answer the phone and be invested in the project or the questions that’s asked. Same thing with Dorian, same thing with me. We didn’t treat this tape half-assed.
FearDorian: I think the biggest thing that I learned from these two is learning to carry myself as a person better. Because I feel like sometimes I discredit myself a lot. I also deal with really bad imposter syndrome so if people were giving me my accolades or whatever, I never feel like I really deserve it. But they’ve reassured me in the sense that I’m who I am and I deserve that and I work hard for it. ‘Cause I see the confidence these two have in themselves and the way they move, and that inspires me to move the way I move.
AyooLii: I just love being with creative individuals and shit. Everything just made sense from the beginning of how everything was going. Everything was casual. I’m basically traveling with these niggas, you know what I’m sayin’? We built that bond.
How has having the same manager positively affected y’all?
Polo Perks: In so many ways. There’s a lot of things that I probably would have to chase [them down for] to get in contact with them. But Lii being able to contact G and have as a manager… I know there’ve been a lot of things that I couldn’t really talk to [him about] and ease his mind on, [but] G got that, you know what I’m saying? And that’s good for him ’cause somebody that’s from an environment where [you] never had nothing promised, you need somebody to show you like, something’s at least promised for you, my nigga. You doing all this work, devoting music videos to this person’s page, or dropping songs on this person’s page, or letting this person get a verse for this cheap, like bro. There’s a lot that’s promised for you bro.
FearDorian: My life did a 180.
When I did my first No Bells interview with Polo, I met him by accident, we did the interview, and as I was writing it out later on, G
had wanted to read the story. I couldn’t do that and he almost pulled the plug on it, but I had to be like “Bruh, just trust me, it’s gonna work!”
Polo Perks: G went to school for journalism himself. That’s why when it comes to PR runs he’s so particular because he’s only going to respect the people that respect this.
That makes sense ‘cause a lot of stuff gets shady.
Polo Perks: Oh fasho!
FearDorian: They been doin’ me crazy!
Like how?
FearDorian: Respectfully, niggas including me in groups that I was never in. Never in my life. It’s belittling to the work I put in when I do my own thing and you say “Oh, it’s in this fashion.”
Polo Perks: Or how ‘bout this one! When you compare him to niggas that don’t make the same amount of money off a beat as him! I done watched my man pay off his mom’s car bills, do everything for his sisters, at the age that he is right now. Let me tell you something: niggas done left their parents in homeless shelters, all types of shit, did niggas completely dirty. We are not comparable to anyone that’s going around. I’ve watched [Lii] take care of his whole damn family, this nigga’s family’s as big as a real fuckin’ village! He’s cousins to everybody in Milwaukee! Damn near serious bro! Whatever niggas think is going on, the shit that’s getting compared or put in cahoots with, it’s not that.
Lii, can you speak on being “cousins to everybody in Milwaukee”? What’s it like branching off of that and having people look up to you?
AyooLii: It’s a gift and a curse at the same time really, ‘cause now you got a whole ‘nother weight on you. Now I got problems that I didn’t even know could exist. But I’d rather have these problems than the old shit that I used to be going through.
How do you balance that with your own personal life?
AyooLii. I feel like everybody needs to just isolate sometimes. That’s what I’ve been trying to do, isolate myself. Because I do got brothers and shit, they be tryna hang with me every day. I am the nigga where you come to my house, nigga, everything’s there for you. So now I’m just on some isolation shit so I can get back in mode.
Do you feel like you get pushback from the people in your life because of that? Or do they understand at this point?
AyooLii: I think they understand. They more understanding than anything because I done did so much. Really, they in debt. Like foreal!
FearDorian: This nigga Lii is stupid bro!
AyooLii: They can’t even really say anything if I want to take some time to myself. I helped you as much as I can, let me help myself out.
What’s the next step for y’all as a group?
FearDorian: Really just pushing [A Dog’s Chance], honestly.
Polo Perks: We’re really at the surface level of this album. Like yeah, we’ve seen the Twitter hype, the Internet hype, but when these songs find actual people willing to die about this shit…
FearDorian: Now we just waiting to see the impact.
AyooLii: You said the next step, right? If the paper right… nah, I’m just playing.
But you not, though!
