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Hypebeast
05-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Hypebeast
Niontay: Underground Rap's Rockstar
Niontayneeds no introduction — his early-career co-signs say it all. At just 26 years old, the 10K rapper has garnered support and collaborations fromEarl SweatshirtandMIKE, the latter of whom has played a key role in the kickstart of the rapper's uprising from the confines of the East Coast underground. 'MIKE put a battery in my back before I even released music,' Niontay told Hypebeast, the pair boasting five studio tracks as a unit. Now, with two studio albums under his belt — fresh off the release ofFada<3of$at the end of April — the Milwaukee-born, Florida-raised, Brooklyn-based rapper has established a tight-knit, symbiotic network of creative collaborators, includingMAVIandSideshowwithTony Seltzeron production. What he hasn't established, per se, is a signature sound — because he doesn't necessarily want to. 'I don't think I'll ever make two albums that sound entirely the same,' he shared, explaining that he doesn't approach writing in a routine, structural way at all. Sometimes the first four bars he spits land perfectly as the hook, while in others, the final verse comes first. All the while, he ponders: 'What even is structure in a song anymore?' When the rapper pulled up to the Hypebeast studio, he donned a custom dark denim zip-up work jacket with 'Sex after church' embroidered on the back of the silhouette. That's the rapper's producer's name, and his original artist name that he ended up changing after deciding it was too raunchy. He still wanted to keep it for something, so it's still his Instagram name and producer tag, though not an alias. That's where lil peanutbutter comes in. A listed featured artist onFada<3of$,peanutbutter delivers some of bars on Tay's favorite track on the album 'Stuntin' like my baba,' taking a higher-pitched voice than the rapper's typical persona. With his primed production background and peanutbutter in tow, Niontay's come-up is in progress, and we're privy to it live. We're just over a month off from the release ofFada<3of$– how are you feeling? I'm feeling good. I'm happy with the reception. I think the release party was what really showed me the impact the project had and put that in perspective for me. People coming up to me and telling me they f*cked with it and that they bought the vinyl. Sh*t's not cheap. How has your connection with MIKE impacted your career? It would have taken me so much longer to figure it all out and get to where I am today if I didn't know MIKE. He opened so many doors for me. I'll tell him that forever. He put a battery in my back before I even released music. While I was in my head, he was just reassuring me like 'You got it. Don't even trip.' When did you first start making music? I started playing around with making music in 2015 when I was 16. I downloaded this platform called Mixpad. You could record yourself and make beats on it – kinda Ableton-ish. When did you drop the first piece of music that you felt good about? Probably in 2019. That was when I started dropping sh*t that I didn't feel bad about telling people to listen to and saying 'I'm a rapper.' Who is Sexafterchurch (your producer alias) in relation to Niontay and your credited alter ego, lil peanutbutter? Sexafterchurch isn't really an alias. It was my artist name at first, but then I decided to change it because it felt a little too raunchy. People were like 'We f*ck with bro, but he should change his name.' So I changed my name. But it's still my Instagram name, so I wanted to keep it for something. lil peanutbutter is my alter ego. How do you know when you want to tap into lil peanutbutter? It's really all about the subject matter. I just think about who would be the better rapper to deliver the lyrics. 'I feel like a real rockstar.' What was your mindset going into building this album? Honestly, I wasn't thinking about it too hard. I wasn't trying to make an album. That wasn't the goal. I was just making music. I didn't put that pressure on myself of 'Every song has to be for the album.' After about two years, I ended up with a bunch of songs, and I finally started going through all of them. I knew certain ones had to be on the album, like 'Top da top' and 'mumbleman.' I played the rest for the homies and got their input, and that's how I made the album. Did you ever feel pressure to drop a project? Toward the end of the two years. I started getting on myself more like, 'Tighten up. Drop. You got all this music. Put it all together. Come on.' So I finally did. How do you approach the writing process? It depends. Sometimes, I hear a beat, and I know the first four bars I say will be the hook. Other times, it'll just be whatever I'm feeling. What even is 'structure' in a song anymore? You hear rappers rap what you think is the hook, but it's really the verse, and then you think it's finally the hook, but it's still the first verse. How would you describe this album in relation toDiontay's inferno? Diontay's Infernowas me finding myself. I think n*ggas like it a lot because it's so raw. I was playing with a lot of different sounds. But this album is me coming in as a more established artist and acknowledging that, like, 'Iaman artist, let me speak more clearly. Let me put more energy into this verse.' Overall, it's just a more polished project. I don't think I'll ever make two albums that sound entirely the same. Why didn't you choose to produce the entire project? I thought about producing the whole thing but there are too many good ass producers out right now who I wanted on there – MIKE, Harrison, Tony Seltzer, WTFOMARI!, Evilgiane. Something unique about this project is the inclusion of speaking parts as interludes or added onto the end of tracks. Could you say more on this? On '32ummers,' that's my mom talking at the end. That's her funny ass. The rest of the album's interludes come from videos I like on YouTube. The one on 'FULLCOURTPRESSHA' comes from this old gangster documentary I watched in London with Omari. Where else do you draw inspiration from? I really admire the way rockstars carry themselves. I feel like a real rockstar. I draw a lot of inspiration from the golden age of rock n' roll, like Ozzy Osbourne. I try to keep that mindset when I approach designing my merch and my live performances. What's next for you? 10K is gonna have a crazy year. MIKE's got 30 tapes ready to go, so how can I not be ready to go myself?
Yahoo
15-05-2025
- Yahoo
Fourteen years in America. A one-way ticket to El Salvador.
MILWAUKEE — When Yessenia Ruano walks through the door of her home after work, her husband, Miguel, is in the kitchen, shredding chicken with two forks, and her twin daughters are in the living room, playing on an iPad. The sound of 'Primer Impacto' fills the background. Ruano opens the fridge to keep the dinner prep going. On the top shelf, there are more than 150 corn tortillas lying flat in their plastic bags. On the bar counter, near unopened mail and trinkets, is a pack of zinnia seeds waiting for the last frost to pass before Yessenia and the girls plant them in the patio across the driveway. This doesn't look like the home of a family on the verge of being uprooted, until Ruano and her husband — one rolling chicken into tortillas over hot oil, the other tending to a pile of dishes on the sink — start talking about the questions suddenly pressing on their everyday lives. In February, during a check-in with Immigration and Customs Enforcement, an agent told Ruano that the government would accelerate plans to deport her. Save for a change in her immigration status, the agent said, she should report back to ICE in two months with a plane ticket back to El Salvador set for 50 days out. It's April now; her next appointment with ICE is coming up in just a few weeks. 'She said I should buy just one plane ticket,' Ruano, 38, tells her husband, recalling a conversation with a colleague at the local public school where she works. Her colleague reasoned that if Ruano bought a fare for everyone in the family and her deportation was averted, they'd be throwing a lot of money in the trash. 'I've always thought we should buy four tickets,' Miguel tells her, hunched over the sink. A few months ago, Ruano went on a ladies' retreat with her church for two nights and left him and their two children to fend for themselves. The girls cried and cried and barely slept. Their dog, a fluffy, white Bichon Frisé who was named Snowflake before the family adopted him, and is now named Copito — short for snowflake in Spanish — barely ate. Ruano agrees that the family should stay together, but most days, she's convinced they'll never use any of the plane tickets in question. Ruano, for 14 years, has clung onto hope that the immigration powers that be will eventually see that she belongs in the United States. She has checked in with ICE 17 times, worn a GPS monitor. She's also built the life she shares with her husband and their Milwaukee-born daughters, a job at a local school and volunteer work at her local Catholic parish. Through it all, she has searched for ways to create roots in the United States. Recently, she petitioned for a visa created for human trafficking victims, based on her experience of forced labor when she first entered the country. That petition is stuck in the growing backlog at the agency that handles visa applications, one that has accelerated since the start of the Trump administration. 'Of course, practically speaking, they can do whatever they want,' Ruano says. 'If they're a little human, then I can prove I belong here. If they just care about detaining people to meet a certain quota and deport them — if I'm just another number — then I can already hear them saying, 'Ma'am, I don't care about your case. We're so sorry, but we're going to send you back to your country.'' Ruano is among the millions of immigrants living in the United States who are facing deportation as the Trump administration ramps up the removal of people with no permanent immigration status. That includes immigrants who, like Ruano, have been in the country for more than a decade and have no criminal record, and whose ties to the country include young children — some of them U.S. citizens — and also careers and community. Ruano's precarious situation isn't entirely the product of Trump-era policies. Like millions of immigrants living in the United States, she entered the country at the southern border, lured by the promise of safety and stability. Like thousands of others, she asked for asylum and was allowed to stay as she waited for a resolution on her petition, as long as she followed the law. Even after her petition was unsuccessful, the U.S. government allowed her to remain in the country provided that she checked in regularly with immigration officials. Under the United States' broken immigration system, one in which laws that haven't been updated in decades no longer align with the reality of immigration patterns, the country's reliance on the immigrant labor force or even the government's ability to enforce such laws, immigrants like Ruano have always lived at the discretion — at the whim — of whoever is in power, from the president down to the ICE officer who is looking at their case that day. When President Donald Trump was inaugurated in January, that dynamic changed again, fueled by an agenda that seems to be taking shape day by day. Ruano remains in this limbo, bracing for her life to be upended while fighting for a different outcome. She follows the countless news stories about people who are in ICE detention, or who have been swiftly deported back to their home countries. Hundreds of thousands more are living just like her, navigating the shifting sands of American immigration policy. Ruano's day usually starts early, and by 6:15 a.m., her daughters Paola and Eli, 9, are in the dining room, ready for their mom to brush their hair. Back in El Salvador, Ruano didn't think she would ever have children. The world seemed dangerous and broken, and life was expensive. 'With the cost of living, I always thought, how?' she said one morning while brushing Eli's hair and finishing it with a braid. Ruano and her husband went to high school together in El Salvador and reconnected again in Milwaukee at the frozen pizza manufacturing plant where they both worked. Eventually, they started dreaming of growing their family. Soon there were four of them. Juggling two babies was hard, but they both landed steady work and were able to buy the duplex they live in, an older home they've improved slowly. Here, they are watching Eli and Paola thrive. Eli loves art. She loves to take clay-like dirt from the backyard and shape it. In their living room, Ruano points to a little bowl made of coiled clay, brown and crumbly and beautiful. A bucket holds dozens of small figurines made with air-dry clay, detailed and complex. Paola is much more interested in building with Legos, and Ruano says proudly that she is ahead of her peers in math. Barely older than her sister, Paola has also taken on a caretaking role in the family that Ruano says came to her naturally. Ruano's daughters have been learning the violin and the viola. They've been debating whether to keep going with the string instruments or move on to another extracurricular activity. 'All of those special skills and talents, we can't really tend to them in my country,' Ruano said. 'It's like they're trying to rip away my dreams, and also those of my two girls.' Eli and Paola are U.S. citizens. Their lives would be significantly different in El Salvador, where economic opportunity, gender-based violence and more could alter the course of their lives. Their father, Miguel, has no legal immigration status. The 19th is not publishing his last name to protect his privacy and employment. Both times Ruano has appeared before ICE this year, agents have alluded to her daughters. During her February appointment, the agent said Ruano should buy plane tickets for her girls as well because she 'would hate to see the family separated,' Ruano recalls. During her April appointment, Ruano's lawyer at the time recalled that the agent scanned Ruano's plane ticket and asked why she hadn't bought plane tickets for the girls. Ruano has spent time talking to each daughter about the different possibilities ahead for their family, including a new life in El Salvador. 'I tried to focus on the positive things, things I liked as a girl,' Ruano said. Ruano explained that the school day in El Salvador would be shorter — the country has one of the shortest school weeks in the world. There would be more time for play. 'I told them that they'd see mango trees, orange trees,' Ruano said. 'Things we don't have here.' They'd still get to sleep next to each other, as they do in Milwaukee. Ruano has a trove of files documenting her immigration journey in the United States, but one piece of paper worn thin from years of use tracks every check-in she's had with ICE since she entered the United States from Mexico in 2011. At the time, Ruano petitioned for the only form of relief she was told she was eligible for, a form of asylum called 'withholding of removal,' which requires immigrants to prove that there is at least a 51 percent likelihood of suffering persecution in their home country. When her case finally came up for review a decade later, a judge told Ruano that her petition would be denied and said Ruano could withdraw it to avoid having the denial on her record. During the hearing, the judge told Ruano through her then-lawyer that the U.S. government wasn't actively deporting people like her, who had no criminal record. She could explore other avenues for legal status. By 2024, she was running out of alternatives and time. ICE placed her in a monitoring program called Alternatives to Detention, or ATD, and told that her deadline to file for a different path to legal status was near. ICE advertises the ATD program as having been designed for immigrants who were 'thoroughly vetted' and deemed not a risk to public safety. To enroll someone in the program, ICE officers consider their ties to the community and status as a caregiver or provider. Ruano checked all of the boxes. Ruano's participation in the program left a mark: she has a band of pale skin around her wrist, where ICE secured a GPS device. The device tracked her location, had facial-recognition software for regular check-ins with ICE, and had messaging capabilities between the agency and Ruano; 'Please call your officer' was a regular prompt. Ruano could swap the batteries to make sure the wrist monitor was powered at all times. Sometimes the backup battery wouldn't work, so she was left to plug the monitor — still attached to her wrist — directly into a wall outlet. When it became loose and couldn't read her pulse, it would blare loudly. 'I would be in the classroom with kids, trying to fix it,' Ruano said. At home, Ruano pored over the internet and eventually found a firm in Chicago that helped her file for a T visa as a victim of human trafficking. The application was almost complete when Ruano was asked to report to ICE for a check-in on Valentine's Day. Ruano's lawyer at the time told her that she feared there was a better-than-90 percent chance she would be detained. Ruano felt that the time she was promised to finish her application had been suddenly taken away. She spent most of the week of the appointment working furiously to make sure her T visa application was in the hands of U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, that her personal documents were in order, that there was a care plan for the girls beyond Miguel. She did all of that while juggling calls with reporters and advocates from Voces De La Frontera, the local immigrant advocacy group supporting her. She watched herself get to the brink of an emotional breakdown. The voice inside her head begged for surrender: 'I'm done. I can't keep going. I'll go back to my country and start over, from zero. The fight is over.' It's a shift from her default, a hope and belief that things will work out. 'It's been 14 years and I've suffered a lot of stress, a lot of anxiety. Every week before one of my hearings with a judge or a check in with ICE, those are nights of no sleep,' Ruano said. 'I'll wake up at one in the morning needing to vomit.' She's had 17 appointments over that time span, and 17 sleepless weeks. Unlike many immigrants without authorization to permanently live in the country, Ruano has not and does not live in the shadows. The U.S. government knows exactly who she is, where she lives, where she works. Ruano said she was not — and is not —willing to defy a deportation order. 'It wouldn't be worth it,' she said. 'I would rather go back to my country, whatever may happen there. Because when I think about living in the shadows, not being able to use my real name, never being at peace … I don't want to live in hiding, waiting for the day they knock on my door.' At the bilingual public school where she teaches, in Milwaukee's heavily Hispanic South Side, the chaos of Ruano's immigration limbo dials down. 'I feel like I'm in my own world,' Ruano said. 'My problems stay back home.' When she walks into a classroom full of kindergarteners, she tells herself, 'Vamos a echarle ganas a este dia.' Let's do this. It's an easy place for her mind to wander to the version of the future she has dreamed for herself. She's an assistant teacher supporting the youngest learners with the most challenging needs. 'I'm always thinking about getting my teaching license,' Ruano said, 'so I can have my own classroom.' Milwaukee has for years struggled with a shortage of teachers, falling victim to the nationwide teacher shortage. The district's superintendent announced recently that the next school year would start with 80 vacant teaching positions, and that's with a recent decision to thin the district's central office by moving more than a fifth of its administrative staffers with teaching certifications into classroom positions. In El Salvador, Ruano graduated from high school and worked her way through college to become an upper-grade teacher. She looked for work in education and wound up cleaning houses instead, joining other teachers with training but no place in the workforce. 'You just end up having to do other work,' Ruano said. 'I got here and saw that there's so much opportunity. Here, they need teachers.' Ruano's workday begins outside the school, where her job is to welcome kids getting dropped off by their parents. On a frigid April day — she does this same job on frigid January days, too, just with extra gear — most of the interactions are quick hellos and good mornings. One little boy in a Minecraft backpack is refusing to walk in. He's sad, and he's asking for his mom. Ruano leans down to chat with him for a minute, a hand on his shoulder, a warm smile beaming. Eventually, he decides to go inside. Ruano's job at this public school has anchored her firmly in this community. As part of Ruano's public plea to immigration officials, teachers and parents from her school have written letters about the value she brings to her community. One parent wrote that their child had been upset for days, worried about the fate of his favorite teacher. Ruano read one of these letters during a news conference before she walked into her February check-in, surrounded by TV cameras and supporters from Voces de La Frontera. Within 48 hours, they collected 2,800 signatures in an online petition supporting Ruano. When Ruano walked out of the courthouse that day, she went to the school to drop off her girls. Students filled the hallways and stairwells, erupting in cheers, relieved that she had not been detained. 'What was really sweet was that she led them in singing our school song. They're usually quiet and shy when we sing it during our school assemblies. That day they were not,' said Brenda Martinez, who helped found the school and acts as its principal. Martinez has been worried about Ruano's case and said the school can't afford to lose her. 'She has a lot of patience to work with the littlest learners. That's who she is,' Martinez said. 'To lose her is like losing a member of our family.' One of the most remarkable aspects of Ruano's journey, she'll say herself, is her own outlook in the face of so much upheaval. 'La esperanza no se me quita,' Ruano said. For the most part, she can't shake the hope that someday, things will inevitably work out. When she reached a point of desperation earlier in the year, she said the thought that pulled her out was a Bible verse she'd memorized. 'I could hear Joshua 1:9 in my head: 'Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.'' Ruano and her family are devout Catholics and also involved with a local Evangelical church. Faith runs through their lives, though the urgency with which Ruano prays lately is new. During a recent Spanish-language Mass at the parish the family attends, — the large hall filled quickly to capacity — the Rev. Javier Bustos opened the service with a prayer that asked God for 'justice for the nation's immigrants.' Bustos said in an interview that since the start of the Trump administration, fear has become palpable in his community, and Ruano's family is just one of the many whom he prays for. In many ways, Ruano's journey to the United States is not unique. She watched violence escalate in El Salvador, and grieved when her brother was kidnapped and later murdered. Her fear for her safety, combined with economic uncertainty, made a future in her home country look grim. Her first attempt to enter the United States resulted in her immediate removal. She tried again less than a year later, paying a group of coyotes to guide her way into the country safely. Once in the United States, Ruano said, she became trapped in a filthy home and forced to work for her captors. She was eventually released after they extorted more money from her family back home. This forms the basis for her claim for a T visa, which requires her cooperation with law enforcement. Bustos, Ruano's priest, said in an interview that every immigrant's story is different, but that losing closely-knit members of this church community feels the same: 'Like losing an arm, or a limb.' Ruano is an active member of the church's prayer group and volunteers during Mass. This Sunday, she was tasked with a Bible reading in front of the several hundred gathered, including her husband and daughters, who smiled watching her walk up to the lectern. Later, she attended a training for members hoping to work with young children, focused on keeping them safe. Ruano is part of a group of members who has committed nearly every Saturday for the next two years to walking a group of children through an intense curriculum in the Catholic faith, up to their First Communion. Ruano already started the rigorous curriculum with her group of students. She hopes to be around to watch them reach the rite of passage. There's a single Salvadoran restaurant in Milwaukee. Its owner, Concepcion Arias, says business has changed since Trump was elected. Fewer customers are coming through the doors, and even some of the regulars are asking for their meals to go. 'People don't want to be out and about,' she said. But Ruano and her family are here on a Sunday after church, one of their regular spots for a meal after Mass. Paola orders a plate of fries with ketchup, while Eli goes for traditional pupusas. On the cover of the menu is a picture of a beach in El Salvador. 'That's where my uncle lives,' Ruano says. The girls glance at the small photo of the sunny tropical landscape. When Ruano was a teenager, she moved to this coastal town to work at her uncle's hotel, a job that helped her pay for school. The girls agree the beach looks beautiful, but then Paola chimes in: 'I'm really scared I'm going to die on a plane.' She's thinking about the prospect of ever traveling to El Salvador, a place she only knows through her parents' stories. Little moments like this one remind all four that the threat of removal hangs heavily over their lives. When lunch is over, the family heads back home, and then Miguel goes out to meet with a contractor. Their home's roof is overdue for a replacement — one of dozens of to dos that are suddenly urgent. Miguel is worried about leaving their home in less than good shape if Yessenia is removed to El Salvador. Under the Biden administration, a pending T visa application would typically halt removal proceedings, but that guarantee no longer exists under the Trump administration. At the end of the Biden administration, the wait time for USCIS to confirm it had received a visa application averaged about four weeks. On the day of Ruano's February check in with ICE, the Trump administration fired 50 employees from USCIS. Within a few weeks, immigration lawyers were reporting that the wait time for visa application receipts had started to grow. When Ruano called USCIS to check on her case in early April, an agent said the average wait time was 10 weeks. When she checked in with USCIS in early May, they told her the wait had grown to four months. Her lawyer, Marc Christopher, who has spent years working on immigration cases in the Milwaukee area, said he's not sure why ICE hasn't fast-tracked her deportation, but that in a multi-tiered system where so much is up to discretion, it's not clear who will have the final say on her case. She is due back for another appointment with ICE at the end of May. In an interview Tuesday, Ruano said she remains hopeful. She's also started to sell household items they no longer use on Facebook Marketplace, a small step toward resignation. She hasn't bought flights for her husband or daughters and hopes she won't have to. The zinnia seeds are now one-inch sprouts. Ruano's daughters will turn 10 in early June. This year, they're most looking forward to celebrating their birthday at school, with cupcakes in class, surrounded by their friends, their mom nearby. Ruano's flight is scheduled to leave the United States the next day. The post Fourteen years in America. A one-way ticket to El Salvador. appeared first on The 19th. News that represents you, in your inbox every weekday. Subscribe to our free, daily newsletter.
