The morning sun beams down on kids bunking off school slamming their skateboards in the concrete jungle of Sydneyham Skatepark. The soothing chaos surrounding us is a perfect metaphor for Yibby’s music. Described by some as a-coming-of-age tale with razor sharp word play, to my ears the music is a serious theatrical delivery with playful personality. Any wandering ear would be allured out of their comfort zone into its unique ambience of raw instrumentals and lyricism.

Having a love for English and poetry, Yibetal’s approach to his EP, Lost in Translation and Singles, can be described as a world filled with twisted and turned words set to a background of consistent bars. Nothing falls short when it comes to the brief syllable song names — ‘Poke’ ‘Talk’, ‘Folk’, ‘Woah’, ‘Ballin’ with Angelothepoet and his single ‘No Sweat’. The latter phrase ‘No Sweat’ sparked my curiosity to which he laughed. “I always was a sweaty kid something in my DNA just got me super hot. It’s like a funny personal thing, so I was like let me just flip that and make a song about it.” He flipped and reversed it to over 50,000 Spotify listens with Yibby standing tall as one of the upcoming artists in the Australian rap game.

Being of Ethiopian roots, Yibby grew up in a culture and household where sounds from Michael Jackson, Santana, and Amy Winehouse surrounded Yibby from a young age. “Growing up I’ve just always been musically inclined and I just gravitated to it, so it’s been kind of a long stemming thing and it gradually built up more where it has become part of my life”. Reminiscing his earliest memories in music, “My sister and I would always wake up every Saturday at 6am religiously to watch rage. I remember I watched Tupac the first time on Rage; Ghetto Gospel, Kanye Pharrell No.1, Jay-Z, Beyonce, and Rihanna. Growing up in Australia there wasn’t many black people on Australian TV, so at the back of our minds seeing black people was really interesting and a really cool thing for us to see.”

Mostly Cronulla raised Yibby understands the experience of growing up in a predominantly Anglo-Saxon community; as a black man “You stood out when you’re not trying to stand out”. Yibby’s stance on this was clear. “You could either feel negative towards it or embrace it and go with it. I felt to grow, to understand, appreciate and accept the unique upbringing.” This explains the common theme in Yibby’s music which shows the world through the eyes of a black man. “That experience comes up a lot because that is closer to home for me, it’s my story and the way I see shit”.

Any listener would know that Yibby’s rap likes to be in balance with the trivial day-to-day things and complexities of existence, rather than the constant up’s and down’s of life that are remembered. “There still needs to be room to talk about the personal and explore darker shit but I like to keep it a mixture because I feel that’s how people are; it’s not all one thing, it’s a light and shade of life.” Whether that would be rapping about the economy or what shoes he’s wearing, Yibby knows how to never fall short of witty delivery with charisma, introducing a new sound to Australian rap.

As more skaters arrive at the scene, Yibby’s calm and laidback aura is disrupted as a pro skater does a trick on the rails. “Shit! He knows what he’s doing [laughs]. I haven’t been skating crazy long but its mad fun, my friends will be doing some shit like skating and I just start doing it as well, but I just try not to break any bones and shit”. The saying ‘You become the company you keep’ is definitely a testimony and put in practice with Yibby’s circle of brotherhood. The bond and strong affiliation he has with his friends is undeniable. I would describe his friendship as the ride or die type, and it’s not a surprise Yibby rode his way into music where his “Homies were making music and my friends asked me to do some shit one day and I just continued on my own after that.” Though Kanye, Jay- Z, MF Doom, and Nas — “the common suspects” — are sources of inspiration for Yibby, his friends have influenced most of his music. “A lot of my inspiration comes from my homies and what they’re doing”. After all, we have to give Yibetal’s friends credit for revealing the once hidden artistry and talent that has now awoken into who we know now as Yibby.

Music is not his only outlet with Yibby being a part of the ‘Most UnDesired Lifestyle’, aka MUD, aka Muddy Boyz, which is also made up of other members Aaron Bull — the Video Connoisseur, Noah — a childhood friend and graphic genius and Sam the hypeman. It’s described as a creative channel and escape of what they find interesting at heart, or shall we say desire at heart, the ironic name itself describes a sort of rebellious flip while flipping the definition of what is considered undesirable. “I wanted to create something where we share different artists we like and things we were interested in. “Most UnDesired is a channel of things we think is worthwhile that may have not been taken as interesting to the public”. To what started as a simple quest to find that one distinctive trademark name, available Instagram username seemed to work in Yibby and the brand’s favor. “I tried thousands of names on Instagram. This worked and I liked it.” Yibby tends to go for one principle — simplicity. They say keeping things simple will produce some of your best and creative work, perhaps because it brings clarity, making it easier to understand or perform resulting in an excellent outcome.

When asking Yibby what’s the best piece of advice he’s been given he responded, “Don’t think too much just try keep it simple. I don’t know who the fuck gave that to me, probably a book or something”. He laughs and continues, “But just try not to overthink shit. I try to make things as simple as possible because that’s when things goes the smoothest”. Sometimes striving for perfectionism can do worse than what is intended and it’s hard to carry or be reminded of that ideology when you are a creative. I guess that’s something Yibby is well familiar with, which has evidently worked to his advantage.

As Yibby sets out to release a new music, we all know that him and his homies will be kicking back in the studio. He’ll be focusing on fine-tuning and discovering that imperfectly perfect sound that is set to keep you on your toes, in the hopes that one day “People are more open to listening to Aussie music and not feeling strange about it”.