Will “King Willonius” Hatcher, creator of the AI hit “BBL Drizzy,” is no stranger to going viral with music. The comedian and digital creator, known to some as ‘Avocado Papi,’ first struck Internet gold in 2007 with a Soulja Boy parody called “Crank That: Homeless Man,” where he rapped “Homeless man ain’t got no rent, askin you for thirty cent/ if you got it, be a gent and drop it youuuu..”
In 2020 Hatcher applied his unique sense of humor to a series on social app Clubhouse, spawning Throat Baby: The Musical, Inspired by BRS Kash’s pandemic summer smash, “Throat Baby.”
“When I first heard ‘Throat Baby,’ I was like, this song is so dope, it needs to be sung in the opera,” the Florida native tells HOT 97.com. “It needs to be a musical. So, I got a cast of 40 people together, wrote the script in a week or two, and then with some of my friends, we made Throat Baby, The Musical. It was all tongue-in-cheek. Just a crazy, crazy thing, man.”
The success of TBTM led to more audio dramas like Young & The Thirsty, as part of the Clubhouse creators program, attracting the likes of actor Lakeith Stanfield.
“It was challenging at first, but throughout that process, man, it gave me so much confidence in myself as a writer.”
Fast forward to March of 2024 and Hatcher applied his audio drama chops to crafting AI songs and movies, most notably, his second creation, “BBL Drizzy.” Inspired by a Rick Ross dig at multiplatinum singer and rapper Drake, Hatcher crafted a soulful, digital pastiche of legends like David Ruffin to mock the 6 God’s imaginary butt enhancements. “I’m thicker than a Snicker I’m thicker than your ninja, Don’t act like you don’t know me these yams deserve a trophy baby, it ain’t no mystery got the best BBL in history!”
“It’s all comedy though,” he explains. “I just find the medium that allows me to express myself. And because I was outside of Hollywood for so long, I just had to figure out ways to still be creative and then still try to knock on the door so that people can see me.”
HOT97.com caught up with “King Willonius” about his viral hit, the implications for Black music, and what is next for his art-official intelligence.
Why the nickname ‘Avocado Papi’?
King Willonius: Oh, man. Because I’d been making avocado smoothies, man, which is delicious. I used to make avocado smoothies on my stories on instagram, and then it just started blowing up, so I just started calling myself Avocado Papi as a joke, and people just started calling me Avocado Papi. It was actually a play on ‘Champagne Papi’, so I’ve had a full circle moment with Drake. That’s been awesome.
So, speaking of Drake. How did you get into making AI songs like “BBL Drizzy”?
Well, the very first one I made was back in March, but it was just to test out the technology, and then I made “BBL Drizzy.” So BBL Drizzy is actually the second AI song that I’ve made, and it just took off. I’ve always been doing comedy music. I put in my 10,000 hours. A lot of times I would choose between, okay, well, ‘I’m going to go do standup tonight, or I’m going to stay in the house and make three or four songs.’ So the process of making comedy music was so much fun to me, that when it came time to actually make ‘BBL Dizzy,’ that whole process took 10, 15 minutes.
What was that process? Where were you when you made that?
King Willonius: So crazy enough, this whole thing was an afterthought that weekend. There was an AI film festival called Pika Labs. It was a 48-hour film festival. So they gave all AI creators 48 hours to make a film, and we had to upload it by midnight Pacific Time, so 3:00 AM. I’m making images during this time, and I remember just seeing “BBL Drizzy” trending on Twitter because of Rick Ross. He was beefing with Drake. So because of that, I just quickly [thought], yo, lemme put something together real quick. And I threw it up, wrote the lyrics, ran it through the little AI generator, made the artwork in Midjourney, and then just threw it on Twitter.
“For me, man, it’s just really trying to just push comedy and push the culture forward.”
Will HAtcher
I was getting zero engagement at the time, so I didn’t even think anything would happen. I was like, lemme just put something out. I need to create in this moment. And then I just remember getting 30,000 hits, and then it just kept slowly trickling up. And then I ended up finishing the film at 3:00 AM. I had a flight at 6:00 AM I had to go to Vegas for this AI eSports tournament, fell asleep on a plane, phone went dead. When I turned it back on, when we landed in Vegas, it was like at 1 million hits. And I was just like, what’s happening right now?
WHEN YOUNG METRO TRUSTS YOU
Where were you when you heard the Metro Boomin flip of your song and what did you think of it?
King Willonius: I was at the comedy club. I was in LA for the Netflix Is A Joke Festival, and I was going to leave [but] something told me to stay till the end of the week. And I’m literally sleeping on my homeboy’s couch. He allowed me to stay there for a little bit longer. And then next thing I know, I’m leaving the comedy club and I just see Metro Boomin had posted “BBL Drizzy.” And I’m like, damn, that’s crazy. Everybody’s trying to jump on this BBL thing. And I listen to the track and I’m like, wait a second, these are MY lyrics. This is the song.
But it sounded so dope, though. I’m forever grateful to Metro for that. I mean, he took it out the stratosphere. I didn’t go to sleep that night because everybody on the East Coast started hitting me up around four or five in the morning. So that LA trip will always be memorable for me. It just felt surreal.
I mean, if I could rap, rap, I would’ve rapped on it. But I was like, man, y’all got it. But what he did with it, man, I loved what he made it into. And I mean, obviously, the world loved it as well. It went crazy.
Metro Boomin shouted you out on Twitter, but since then, have you had any other conversations?
King Willonius: No, we haven’t chopped it up, man. But I mean, I would love the opportunity to work with him more. Obviously, he’s one of the greatest producers of all time. I just want to work with talented people, man. And I mean, one of the benefits of this thing blowing up was being that I was in LA, I got a chance to sit down with Will.i. am, who’s just a genius in his own right. He has an app called FYI, it’s an AI app. So we were able to talk music, talk AI, talk creativity, and that was probably one of the dopest experiences out of this is just sitting down with him for like four hours.
NOTHING WAS THE SAME
The question a lot of people have is, are you making money from this? But it feels like the opportunities are coming to make money more than actual dollars.
King Willonius: Yeah, that’s probably the biggest thing, the social capital. I can jump on the phone. The comedy world hasn’t really taken hold of me yet, which I thought that seeing Risa Tisa, she got a deal off Rip. I’m not getting that type of stuff. The CAAs and all them, they haven’t hit me up. But within music, they definitely hit me up, which I know why, just because this is very unprecedented territory. This is the biggest AI song ever, and it is groundbreaking, depending on how this goes, it’s really going to change music forever. And it’s so funny that a comedian is the one that kind of orchestrated it.
I just pride myself on my work ethic. I know that if I just keep working, working hard, working smart, staying consistent, all the rest, everything else will take care of itself.
Did you hear Drake rapping over it on the Sexyy Red track?
King Willonius: I haven’t actually listened to the song yet. Immediately after leaving LA, I went to this yoga retreat. So I’ve been in Zen mode for the last week or so. But I did hear the snippet of Drake rapping. I was like, I don’t know if I broke the Matrix or something, because there’s no reason for a rapper to be rapping on his own diss track at all. You know what I’m saying? Logically it doesn’t make sense at all. And he called himself BBL Drizzy! This is comedy in real life.
Have you been approached by any record labels?
King Willonius: Record labels hit me up, man, but no official deals, just trying to figure out who I am and trying to gauge everything. I’m using AI to learn about the record business and just trying to get up to speed as much as I can.
You also made an AI movie about the beef with Kendrick…
So the AI film, it was called King Kendrick. I wanted to imagine what Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, and Drake would be in the Game of Thrones universe. So I made that and dropped the day that J Cole made his apology. I’m like, oh shit, did I miss this moment? J. Cole just apologized, this might be over. So I was trying to hurry up and get it done. I had no idea that I was actually at the beginning of the beef.
That was back in early April. Prior to doing the music, I was just all into making AI film. I was committed to just doing an AI film every week. A lot of ’em didn’t get any attention. I wasn’t concerned about the attention, I just want to be very process-oriented.
I thought that the AI film thing would be my wave and my way in. And even just making that Kendrick thing, it was just about, okay, it’s been a week, I need to drop some content. This is the thing that everybody’s talking about in hip-hop. Maybe this will get some attention if I put these characters in there. I just wanted to see what that would look like and continue to try to get better in my craft. I had no idea the music stuff would take off. Again, the music stuff was just an afterthought.
That’s crazy. What made you make OV-Hoe?
King Willonius: While the beef was going on, I kind of shifted my focus from films to just doing music. So I just told myself, anytime Kendrick or Drake would drop, I would drop. And that was my energy. So when Drake dropped “Pushups,” I made two tracks. One was called “Make The Drums.” It’s like James Brown telling Metro to make them drums. He was like, “Shut your ass up and make them drums, Metro,” and that’s it. And then I made one called “Step On me” because Drake had a line about Kendrick having small feet.
So you haven’t taken sides, you’ve been giving him both the smoke, the Drake diss just took off.
King Willonius: Well, yeah, Kendrick’s stuff was just funnier. So the “Make the drums” was funny. But yeah, so the “Ov Hoe” came about just because Kendrick dropped that song, and I was just like, yo, I got to jump in there. It had this little gospel-type tone to it, and I was like, this is too dope. I just thought it was funny, man. I was just playing the middle and it was exhausting. Kendrick was working double time. So there was a period where he dropped what, three, four songs in one day…
That Friday night was nuts.
King Willonius: Yeah, man. So I was just dropping tracks right after. Some of the stuff at the end with “Family Matters” and “The Heart” part six, I didn’t drop anything around that. It just felt too mean-spirited. I’m not about to make a track about somebody doing something to somebody’s wife or this and that, that’s not my comedic vibe. But if it is trending on Twitter, like “OV-Hoe,” that song was so much in the culture that I couldn’t not make a song about it. It was making people laugh. So I was like, all right, I took the whole Jay-Z [lyric] “You made it a hot line, I made it a hot song.” That was my MO throughout the beef.
BBL DRIZZY…THE MUSICAL?
Did you grow up with soul singers in your household? Did your mom and dad play Al Green in there, or is this coming from someplace else?
King Willonius: Funny enough, bro, my parents didn’t listen to music at all. We never played music like that. But amongst my peers and my friends, I always loved that particular genre, probably up to the ‘80s and ‘70s in particular. I used to watch a lot of blaxploitation movies. I just resonated with that time period. And then the music, Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes and the Temptations and all that. It is just an amazing period for music. And I think why it’s resonating with people so much is I think we miss that sound and we miss the energy around it.
So lastly, what’s next for you?
King Willonius: So I was telling people, I’m making BBL Drizzy: The Musical, because I think that that might need to happen, but for me, man, it’s just really trying to just push comedy and push the culture forward. When it’s all said and done, I want people to resonate with my art and my comedy the same way they look at it like an Issa Rae or Donald Glover.
I want people to kind of connect with me in that way. Whether I’m doing a feature film, doing an album or this is my Zady hat that I make, I want people to be like, yo, this guy loves Black people. He uplifts, he’s not going to disappoint us. I’m not on any coon type stuff. And it’s just about really moving the culture forward. I use technology right now to do it. I don’t have to use technology, but it’s a thing that allows me to put out art at a very high level. And I mean, I love tech. I have a coding background. I understand it. But the main thing is uplifting Black people. That’s always number one.
Everything else is trying to show us, so we can see and imagine ourselves in this space. Because it’s not only for me, it’s like the younger generation, the kids in elementary school, middle school and high school, that I don’t want people to feel like ‘I’m so talented, but I just can’t get a shot.’ I know there’s so many artists like that that will never get this opportunity to speak with you just because they’ll never be seen. Maybe they’re just so focused on their artistry that they’re not thinking about marketing, they’re not thinking about all these different things, or they just get discouraged because they feel like they can’t exist within this space.
So, whenever I get that opportunity to really start amplifying creators and amplifying our people, I’m going to take that and run with it because we’re just too talented, man.
That’s what I meant when I said AI is reparations. AI is allowing us to exist and break down barriers. So I’m going to just keep making things and hopefully keep inspiring people so our art, our voices, can really get out there.