By the start of the millennium, Ayokipp, born Kippy Kenneth Warren, was just a kid growing up in Toledo. The city, nestled in one far corner of Ohio, adjacent to Lake Erie’s waterfront, is close enough to Chicago, Detroit, Cincinnati and Cleveland to have cultivated a passion for music that would form Kipp’s entire future -- from engineer to producer to artist. Beyond his city’s influence, his grandmother raised him in the church and encouraged the fundamentals -- Ayokipp learned how to play the flute by the third grade. Even before then, at six years old, Papers’ grandfather would have him tag along on his runs around the city. “He would have me all in the bars,” he says with a chuckle. The music he’d heard on these excursions stuck with him throughout the years. “There were the jazz and swing elements. There was a lot of OG music because the [clientele included] hustlers, pool sharks, prostitutes and gangsters.” “I’m always experimenting with new sounds, like, I wouldn’t just stick with 808s,” he explains. “I’ma have some pop drums. I’ma have garage drums. I may find something from video games or a cool movie. I just like to keep the sounds coming from different places. I don’t make any record with any intent of how I want it to sound. It just comes out sounding, you know...” he says, pausing. “Different. With a groove. Gotta have that. And a bounce.” “I’m making music so people know who Ayokipp is. I just wanna show that there are different people out here.”