You Look Fine Ajai!
Graphic by Agnes Lee. Image via Serengeti and Kenny Segal.
Festivals like Dillo Day aren’t the only convergence of music and fashion. Legendary Chicago rapper David Cohn, aka Serengeti, has released “Ajai” — a burlesque satire of streetwear and pop culture. The album explores collabs and clout via exorbitant anecdotes and breathless storytelling. ‘Geti’s got drops, and his raps are always in-stock.
Kenny Dennis is a man of misadventure. He feuds with Shaq, drives beer trucks and kicks bennie addictions on a schedule: before ‘90s Bulls championship runs. He’s the frontman for hip-hop groups The Grimm Teachaz and Perfecto, spitting in a Chicawgo accent thicker than his Ditka ‘stache. Imbued with blue-collar disposition, Kenny glorifies near-beers and brats, tokes Kool cigarettes, and sees himself in his favorite actor, the late Brian Dennehy.
But for his mountain of idiosyncrasies, Kenny is a fictional persona — the rap protagonist imagined by Chicago MC David Cohn, aka Serengeti. For nearly 20 years Cohn has grown the saga of Kenny into an underground hip-hop sensation, while cementing himself as an outlier in a genre traditionally based in nonfiction. His dozens of EPs and records, an ever-expanding recollection of Kenny’s life, track not so much as a discography, but a sonic comic book.
Cohn’s ridiculously detailed approach has earned some mainstream acclaim. The great-nephew of jazz trumpeter Sonny Cohn, he occasionally collaborates with Sufjan Stevens, experimental band Son Lux, and Open Mike Eagle. In 2013, his solo project “Kenny Dennis LP” was listed as one of Spin Magazine’s 40 Best Hip-Hop Albums of the year. Locally, his 2006 track “Dennehy” has become the unofficial anthem of working-class, sport-fanatic Chicagoans:
“Favorite actor Dennehy, favorite drink O’Doul’s,
Bears, Hawks, Sox, Bulls”
Attention, though, isn’t a concern for Cohn. He doesn’t run with a manager or perform many live shows; he’s always prioritized the tight storytelling of Kenny over any commercial success. He finds opportunity in characters and jots his bars like a screenplay: intermixings of description, dialogue and scene direction, writing worlds that toe the line between stark reality and seemingly unbelievable scenarios.
As day-to-day reality continues to earn its now cliché “unprecedented” label, lines between fiction and nonfiction, surrealism and hyper-realism continue to blur. For a quarantined city, this artistic approach might be the perfect storm of entertainment and normalcy. If indulging in Kenny Dennis, caricature of the South Side everyman, is what we need, Cohn has us covered: his latest album, “Ajai,” a chaotic venture into the world of hypebeast streetwear, dropped in early April.
Before quarantine, Cohn admits that his schedule was haphazard for a middle-aged man. A flick buff, he shamelessly reminisces about trips to movie theatres and the judgment he’d accrue there.
“Here I am, watching this movie in a completely empty theatre, it’s like 10:45 on a Tuesday morning,” he says. “I must have seemed like a big creep. People must have been like, ‘What is this guy’s problem? Doesn’t he have a job?’”
Talking movies and documentaries with Cohn, frankly, is a bit maddening. He’s quick to mention characters and actors, but can rarely remember the movie’s actual title. This affinity for roles and people clearly translates to his musical storytelling. As he spitballs, you can’t ignore that Cohn himself is a character, peppering staccato thoughts with “youknowwhatI’msaying?”s, occasionally slipping into his Kenny Dennis accent. You sometimes forget who’s actually the real person: Cohn or Kenny.
But if there’s been a silver-lining during quarantine for Cohn, it’s his rekindled love for the creative process. His 2018 album “Dennis 6e,” advertised as the “Final Dennis,” tapped into Cohn’s darker tendencies. It seemed to be a powerful end to the Kenny Dennis saga: Kenny had lost his beloved wife Jueles, succumbed to a debilitating psychotic break, and moved from Chicago to a lonely Minneapolis apartment. Cohn’s subsequent releases of unrelated projects lent credence to the idea that Kenny, indeed, was retired. And he was — until a two week creative eruption this spring.
“The thing just struck, and boy was it so fun,” Cohn says. “You know when you have an idea, and then think: ooh, how ever am I going to do that? It wasn’t even like that. I was just doing it, living in the process.
“That’s always my fear. Like, let me get it as close as I can to the idea, without messing it up. But with this one, the idea and the work were all one in the same.”
Cohn wrote and recorded “Ajai,” the 16-track, two-part album, in 12 days. Though he normally records in another city at a pre-booked locale, extended time at home allowed him to set up his own studio. This was the first time in 20 years that Cohn wasn’t saddled with the pressure of finishing the project while working against the clock.
“It was a great joy, just an ultimate joy to live in it and have my art. The whole process was everything,” Cohn says. “I was at my house, there were no expectations. This was for myself. Like, huh, that was really fun. I can’t wait to do that again.”
Image via Serengeti
The allure of “Ajai” as Cohn’s most zany project stems from its satire of streetwear culture. Written in two acts, the album’s A-side introduces Ajai, a vain husband obsessed with limited-edition “drops” and name-brand collaborations.
“He’s just a fella who loves his wife totally, but he’s hooked on shopping,” Cohn says. “It’s sort of ruining his marriage, and he doesn’t even see it.”
These collabs quickly become the entrypoint for the hyper-realistic surrealism of “Ajai.” A “Häagen-Dasz collab with Baker’s Square and TFC,” “Steve Martin ‘Father of the Bride’ drop,” and “O’Douls X Portillos and Kools” are just a few of the realities Cohn concocts.
The album’s first tracks both establish Ajai’s story and jab at consumerism, a larger theme Cohn was conscious of while writing. In the record’s intro, “Ajai,” he remarks on a “dumbass turtle eating plastic in the ocean,” while the second track, “Don’t Wear That Suit Ajai,” details a heated exchange — “You look fine Ajai!” — with his frustrated wife.
“I felt so bad for the wife,” Cohn says. “‘Ajai! Come out of the bathroom!’ He doesn’t even know what’s up.”
Moments like these reveal the breadth and depth of Cohn’s world-sculpting. Even if he can’t rap all of it, Cohn knows his characters’ quirks, headspaces, sentiments and hobbies. He talks about them as he would a close friend, joshing their wacky behavior as if he didn’t script it all himself.
On “Company Softball Game,” Cohn laughs at Ajai’s athletic ineptitude: “He’s got everything Supreme, even a Supreme catcher’s mask. Why do you have a catcher’s mask playing 16-inch softball?”
On “Summary,” a near spoken-word piece, Cohn rattles off an uber-specific chronology of Ajai’s “overnight stay in jail due to a clerical error,” his gig as a tutor to four Chinese immigrants, and his fireman neighbor Lynn’s beatdown via the Indian martial art of Kalaripayattu, the video of which goes viral on WorldStar.
“It’s not really a song, it’s more like three different stories combined into one,” Cohn says.
Ajai’s story wraps up in Cohn-esque fashion. Blind to his failing marriage, he flaunts his collector’s items in another schizophrenic barrage of pop culture: “Garbage Pail Kids sealed from Japan,” “Shorts worn by Drago in the ‘Rocky IV’ War”, a photo of “Jean-Claude Van Damme in Guess jeans.”
On “Ajai Finale,” he utters aptly oblivious last words: “I like my wife and my coat.”
Image via Album of the Year
The album’s theme of collaboration shoulders additional meaning during its midpoint interlude, “Intermission.” Jazz piano and cuts of Twin Cities newscasts transport us to Minnesota, introducing the project’s second act. A “Columbo”-esque TV theme signals the anachronistic return of Kenny Dennis, who’s spending his birthday alone. It’s the first we’ve heard of Kenny in two years, and Cohn has been busy developing his dilapidated psyche.
“He used to be passionate about a lot of things: cooking his brats, playing sports, his friends,” Cohn says. “Ever since he’s been living in this studio apartment and working on a food truck, it’s been a total solitude existence.”
But with a similar energy to the one Cohn channeled into making the album, a happenstance series of events sparks a passion in Kenny’s life.
“One of Ajai’s pair of shoes gets accidentally drop-shipped to Kenny Dennis,” Cohn says, launching into another spiel of cutting-room-floor detail.
“He happened to need some shoes too, cause his Brooks were devastatingly messed up, they had no traction or anything. So he puts them on, and walks outside, just going to the store, when he’s approached by another person, who asks to buy those shoes for $4,000 cash. He sells them to him, and that’s how he got his whole introduction to the hypebeast world.”
With the absurd zeal of an aging man, songs like “Collab,” “How I Look,” “Exhausted” and “Kenny’s Ad” see Kenny on a quest to get verified on Instagram and cop “Ginger collab Zero Sugar Sprite,” all the while blowing off a potential romantic interest for a “Lotion drop.”
Sonically, Kenny’s vocals grow fiercely tiresome, amplifying into shouts in moments of extreme passion. But dialed-back introspection — “Life has no breaks, do what you want, do what it takes,” “Everyone’s down with expression,” and “There’s a whole lot of drops in this world for me and you” — remind us of Cohn’s personal attachment (and sometimes interchangeable headspace) to Kenny’s character.
“It’s so much to unpack, you sound like a crazy person trying to explain it,” Cohn says. “My stuff has always been a little wacky in terms of how it was organized. But for me, they all were my ideas, so it wasn’t always all over the place.”
Despite his frenzied music, Cohn has simple advice for a Chicago under quarantine: “Take a shower, take a shave, take a walk.” It’s a routine that has provided Cohn with solace in his personal life, which is much less frantic than Kenny’s endeavors on “Ajai.”
“I don’t know why it took [quarantine] to make me do this,” Cohn says. “To wake up at the crack of dawn. To take a shower every day. Like, I have pajamas now.”
This time for reflection, through tragic circumstances, has become necessary for Cohn. For the first time in his career, he’s been made aware of the emotional impact of his music. When Brian Dennehy passed away in April, the single “Dennehy” surged in streams to pay homage to the late actor, and fans tagged Cohn on social media with the cult favorite line: “Favorite actor Dennehy.”
“That favorite actor line helped shape this whole universe,” Cohn says. “He represents when the flick was a flick-type flick. With a beginning and middle and end. He plays a good guy, he plays a bad guy. I’ve gotten a lot of messages like ‘sorry for your loss.’ Like, woah, that’s pretty heavy.”
It’s a reminder that Kenny’s caricature, through ultra-specific relatability and creative escapism, hits home for Cohn’s local audience. In a city that’s feeling less and less like itself, Cohn’s nostalgic music serves to unite Chicago. With a plethora of content soon on the horizon –– projects detailing Kenny’s backstory, potential movie scripts, updated merchandise –– Cohn’s “definitely, definitely got more drops for me and you.”