A storm has kicked up in South Florida, and it isn’t just your run-of-the-mill hurricane. The region remains a perennially underrated bastion of hip-hop, and its most exciting voice for the streets is 9lokknine. Full of thick local lexicon and athletic flows, 9lokknine’s music can be sad, aspirational, and fun all at once, making the case for him as one of the state’s most exciting voices. Born Jacquavius Dennard Smith in Orlando, Florida in 2000, 9lokk soaked up the gamut of Southern rap—Lil Wayne and T-Pain, Rick Ross and Plies—and began rapping at the age of nine. But it wasn’t until his teenage years that he’d discover his biggest influence: Kodak Black. The South Florida MC loomed large over 9lokknine’s rapping style—twangy, caked in slang—which you can hear in 9lokk’s 2018 breakout single “10 Percent.” As 9lokk progressed, however, his style began to develop into something looser, more laidback, and more his own. A self-described class clown, 9lokknine imbues his music and videos with his trademark charm. His three 2019 tapes are delirious rap marathons, and his turn on YNW Melly’s 2019 smash “223’s” has the aura of a breezy beach day; you almost forget it’s about guns. (In the video, he raps that verse over salad and roast with a sheltered white family.) Like the best street rappers, 9lokknine can weave stories of trials and tribulation, but he also understands that humor is the unspoken fifth element of hip-hop.