
Yonny, 24, might be the most popular Seattle hip-hop artist you’ve by no means heard of.
Take it from Seattle musicians: Gaining industrial traction isn’t simply laborious work however a statistical improbability. Success can really feel fortunate, even when it’s not. And the following perks can really feel too good to be true, even when they’ve been earned. These philosophical questions are simply dawning on rising hip-hop artist Yonny, who occurs to be consuming a hamburger off the trunk of his sedan within the car parking zone of the Lake Metropolis Dick’s Drive-In. “For sure,” he says, “‘Metropolis in Movement’ modified my life.”
“Metropolis in Movement,” the primary single off Yonny’s breakout album, dropped in February 2024. After a 12 months it’s been streamed on Spotify near 2 million occasions. Lately, Yonny’s life is altering quicker than ever.
Yonny, 24, might be the most popular Seattle hip-hop artist you’ve by no means heard of. Born Yonatan Daniel, he lives unassumingly along with his mom and older sister in Lynnwood. He graduated from Edmonds-Woodway Excessive Faculty in 2019 and, with school “not within the playing cards,” started working as a COVID-era camp counselor, a self-described “Yard Man” at Dunn Lumber in Everett, and most lately as a busser and server assistant at BeachHouse Bar & Grill in Kirkland, the place he nonetheless works.

Yonny’s In every single place, However At all times swerves catchily between basic and neo vibes.
Then there’s Yonny’s different life. The brand new one. On this world Yonny is a rising star with greater than 100 thousand month-to-month listeners. He’s the lyrical mastermind behind this September’s wonderful In every single place, However At all times, a nine-track LP swerving catchily between basic and neo vibes, tied along with remarkably mature supply and circulate. He additionally options in a variety of music movies from mentioned mission, together with “Summertime Insanity”—shot on California’s Mount Tamalpais and Whidbey Island’s Fort Ebey—and the Seattle-centric “Metropolis in Movement,” which has already racked up 125,000 views.
It’s all fairly spectacular for a 24-year-old. However Yonny’s an outdated soul. He’s not coasting, and he’s not content material with the label of being a “native” artist, both. “The factor I’ve discovered,” he says of his early years on the Seattle scene, “is that individuals all wish to declare they’re from right here, and that they’ve been right here eternally. I believe what individuals fail to understand is that the one manner we are able to go huge, the best way we are able to put Seattle’s stamp on hip-hop tradition, is individuals must get out. There’s so many artists right here, however none of us are capable of break via that wall. It’s tremendous vital to me to carry Seattle in every single place else. And to do this, you gotta go.”
Yonny’s Prime 5 Native Albums
Yonny: “It’s gonna be a extremely wonky-ass listing, however right here we go. Let’s see…I can’t put mine up there.”
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Nevermind by Nirvana
“On there for certain.” -
Echoes, Silence, Endurance & Grace by the Foo Fighters
“I listened to ‘The Pretender’ nonstop for a very long time.” -
LINDENAVE! by Oblé Reed
“That’s only a nice album.” -
All in One Evening (and singles) by Lazā
“One in every of my favorites.” -
The entire catalog from Travis Thompson
“I actually love Travis Thompson. He’s my good friend, too.”
Yonny’s musical journey started at dwelling. His mom immigrated to the Pacific Northwest from Ethiopia in 1995 after profitable a inexperienced card lottery, and have become an R&B fan as she was studying English. She would all the time have the radio on whereas elevating Yonny and his older sister. “Michael Jackson,” Yonny remembers. “Ne-Yo.” The three of them can be “singing on a regular basis,” including Ethiopian songs to the combination when radio acquired stale. Exterior the home, a craze was sweeping via Cedar Valley Elementary having to do with the Chris Brown observe “Have a look at Me Now,” that includes Lil Wayne and Busta Rhymes. “Everybody was attempting to study the verse that Busta Rhymes did,” says Yonny. “The super-fast one.”
“Trigger I’m feelin’ like I’m runnin’ and I’m feelin’ like I gotta get away, get away, get away.…”
It’s basic Busta, condensed triplets and cross-meter theatrics, half severe, half foolish, all chops. Yonny and his mates admired the physicality of the verse and agreed: “In the event you might learn to try this, you’re the best particular person in right here.” Yonny did simply that, to the purpose the place youngsters had been requesting it within the corridor.
Granted, Yonny was only a child when this occurred. However in some regards his journey had begun. He’d additionally been wading into the autodidactic ocean that’s YouTube, latching onto basic acts like Eminem, Tupac, Biggie, and Wu-Tang Clan. “A whole lot of Eminem,” he specifies. “Yeah. Eminem was dope.”

For Yonny it began with a Busta Rhymes impression in his college hallways.
The rapping took a backseat for some time in center college—how might it not?—however in freshman 12 months of highschool Yonny turned obsessive about Dr. Dre’s 2001 and “discovered each lyric to each music.” He transferred excessive faculties for sophomore 12 months and reconnected with outdated mates who had been equally into hip-hop. “We’d simply sit within the automotive and freestyle, in my good friend Dom’s outdated Camry.” After some time, Yonny’s friends took word of what they had been listening to. “I didn’t give it some thought in that sense,” he says. “However they had been like, you realize, it is best to begin taking this severely.”
A good friend linked Yonny to the producer Evan George in 2021. George was looking out for a deep voice so as to add to his tracks. “That’s the primary time a producer ever hit me up,” says Yonny. “I used to be like, oh my God.” George saved a small studio at the back of the Kennelly Keys Music retailer in Lynnwood. Yonny visited “a number of occasions every week.” Past that, “[George] was taking me to locations, introducing me to individuals. We labored rather well collectively. And it felt like we had been rising with each other.”

Yonnny handed hours and hours freestyling in his buddy’s Camry in highschool.
Yonny turned 21 that 12 months. He might lastly go to membership reveals, get out on the scene. He and George poured their skills and time into an EP referred to as Ghetto Sundown, releasing it towards the tip of 2022. They’d deliberate to run full steam forward after that, however Yonny sensed that one thing was off. “I used to be forcing stuff.” So that they canceled all additional releases towards the beginning of 2023 and went again to the drafting board, enlisting the manufacturing assist of Jake Crocker, whom Yonny had met via a mutual good friend. “They’re like my huge brothers,” says Yonny of Crocker and George.
The brand new three-man group spent some time “formulating a sound,” which for Yonny meant listening to different tasks and preserving an open thoughts. At lunch breaks in Everett, he’d sit in his automotive out within the lumberyard and report demos on his telephone. “There are a variety of days the place I’m simply sitting there considering, like, man, what am I doing?”
Yonny’s Prime 5 Hip-Hop Albums
- DAMN. by Kendrick Lamar
- 2001 by Dr. Dre
- The Marshall Mathers LP by Eminem
- Tha Carter III by Lil Wayne
- Blackout! by Technique Man & Redman
That query would reply itself in a few 12 months’s time, forming the opening lyrics on Yonny’s new launch.
Since a youth I all the time had a manner with talking, Tryna get these verses off contained in the Camry each weekend / Now I’m reaching—Cease! Reaching excessive like drowning within the deep finish, Matter truth, matter truth boy I been thinkin’ / What’s my half on this, What’s the rationale for all of this, Labels abusing artists for viewership, music advertising and marketing, inform me your target market.…
An enormous break arrived in 2022 when Yonny linked up with native videographers Nash Pearson and Finn Baker, each 21 years outdated. Working individually and as a duo, their punchy, viral-worthy music movies added a level of shine to Yonny’s already polished product, placing the In every single place, However At all times expertise excessive. “They’re prepared to hearken to my crazy-ass concepts and really make it occur,” says Yonny.

Yonny is staying humble and having fun with the experience—however he is prepared for large issues.
Yonny’s most up-to-date crazy-ass concept? That will most likely be this Dick’s Drive-In car parking zone, which he personally chosen for our November interview and photograph shoot. Fortunately the rain’s holding off, and the photographer’s simply arrived with a rented convertible. (Prime down, natch.) Bear in mind: Yonny’s hit single dropped in February, his hit album in September. It’s not like he’s used to any of this. Not but. However he’s staying humble and having fun with the experience. In every week he’ll head to New York for a one-off gig, his first time ever within the Huge Apple. Yonny’s clearly excited for it. However he’s additionally attempting to take issues one step at a time. It’s similar to he says in “Metropolis in Movement.”
Maintain on, ain’t no person skip the method / We been in it for the progress.