To find your calling, sometimes you just need to take a leap of faith. Renni Rucci, a 27-year-old rapper out of South Carolina, had multiple brushes with hip-hop before she went all in. And despite the hesitant years, she made her mark in 2018 after dropping bars over Lil Baby's "Freestyle," the video for which exhibits a confident and polished artist using the Atlanta star's flow to share details about her own life. The clip has been viewed nearly 5 million times, including at least a few playbacks via Quality Control co-CEO Pee, who has publicly praised her.

Renni Rucci first hopped on a hip-hop track back in high school, recording a song with the father of her children. She found herself enamored with rap, realizing that it wasn't too different from the poetry she was already writing. After working various jobs—including some time as a stripper—Renni got serious about music around 2017, showing off her craft over industry beats like Cardi B's "Bodak Yellow," Moneybagg Yo's "Trending" and the aforementioned Lil Baby track.

With her music picking up and momentum turning the corner, Renni Renni dropped her debut mixtape, Big Renni, in May. The tape is led by the bouncy track "Fuck Em Up Sis," which has been streamed more than 2 million times on Spotify. Most recently, Renni appears on "Like That," a track that appears on Quality Control's Control The Streets 2 compilation and also features City Girls and XXL Freshman alum Stefflon Don.

Get to know Renni Renni in this week's edition of XXL's The Break.

Age: 27

Hometown: Columbia, S.C.

I grew up listening to: "A lot of OutKast [and] oldies. Not a lot of rap music until I got a little older, cause my mom is really into juke joint music, Otis Redding, stuff like that. She loved Eve—she cut her hair blonde and everything. When I started listening to what I wanted to, of course [it was] Lil Wayne. I'm a big Lil Wayne fan. I love André 3000. Eve by default. She was really the first female rapper I really paid attention to. Eve was talking really rough. I'm not saying nobody before her did that; I'm just saying that was really the first time I paid attention to it."

My style’s been compared to: "Nobody. I sound like Renni. That's what they say."

My standout records to date have been: "'Fuck Em Up Sis' and 'Elevators.' 'Fuck Em Up Sis' is the twerk song and we in that phase right now. 'Elevators' is a confidence booster. It just makes you feel like that bitch—even if you a guy. It's dominating [and] powerful."

My most slept-on song: "I'm not gonna say I have a slept-on song, because people are still getting to know me."

My standout moments to date have been: "I'm at XXL—today's a big day."

Most people don’t know: "I have a horrible sense of humor. I think stuff is funny that's not funny. I laugh at inappropriate stuff. My jokes are really inappropriate."

I’m going to blow up because: "This feels right. If it wasn't supposed to happen, I wouldn't be here. It's a thousand other girls somewhere, starting to rap right now, from the same walks of life as me and different ones. But they not sitting in XXL, so, what is for me, is for me."

I’m going to be the next: "Greatest artist [of any] gender."

Follow Renni Rucci on SoundCloud and Instagram.

Standouts:

"Freestyle (Remix)"

"Elevators"

"Fuck Em Up Sis"

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