Full Name: Chisom Lucky Okoro
Also Known As: ZayLevelTen, Tenski
Origin: Ikorodu, Lagos (family from Ohaozara, Ebonyi State)
Born: August 12, 2002
Genres: Afro-trap, Alté, Rage Rap, Afrobeats fusion
The Producer Behind the Rapper
Zaylevelten's real name is Chisom Lucky Okoro, born August 12, 2002 in Lagos. He goes by two names depending on which side of the booth you find him: Zaylevelten as the rapper, Tenski as the producer — the same person handling both the writing and the beat. By his own account, around 70 percent of his last project was self-produced, which makes the "Tenski save me" producer tag that now echoes through clubs, cars and TikTok edits less of a branding gimmick and more of an honest credit. He told Dazed: "My music is the border where hip hop and core Nigerian music meet to procreate the 'burti' [vibe]. I mix the influences I get from the Western world with my African roots."
Saving Data to Find the Underground
Before he had an audience, Zaylevelten had a hard drive. "I used to save up a gigabyte of data to see what was going on in underground scenes worldwide," he told Dazed. "I've always wanted to do everything different, whether it's how I talk, sing, rap or dress." That obsessive curiosity about global underground rap — rage rap, cloud rap, alté — eventually collided with the Yoruba, Igbo, Pidgin and English he grew up speaking around Ikorodu, and the collision is the entire premise of his sound.
No Gree to then 1t g0t crazy
He debuted in 2024 with No Gree, a cloud-rap-leaning record clearly pulling from Playboi Carti and Travis Scott, filtered through what Afromixx described as "a unique offering of escapism" built on the reckless, hedonistic stories many young Nigerians understand intimately. His breakout project, then 1t g0t crazy, and its deluxe edition followed, built around the same Afro-trap and electronic fusion, and featuring collaborations with Mavo and ODUMODUBLVCK. His standout tracks since include Watching Me, Maye, Pawon and Fly, with each surpassing a million streams.
Fresh Finds Africa and the Glitch Trend
Fresh Finds Africa, the Spotify program championing independent artists since 2022, picked him up early, and seeing his music land on that playlist marked a real turning point for him. Within less than a year of breaking out, he had built a strong alté and rap-rage fanbase, fans who started what became known online as the "Zaylevelten glitch trend" on TikTok.
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"We're doing shows with 1000 people in them, and they're sold out," he told Dazed of his recent run. "It's definitely the right time." He's outspoken about being one of the first rappers to break out of Ikorodu as a complete artist, without watering down his sound or switching lanes to be accepted by the mainstream — a point of real pride given how much of Nigeria's rap and Afrobeats conversation centres on Lagos Mainland and Island scenes rather than satellite towns like his own. Asked about future collaborations, he's named Ken Carson internationally and Rema locally as artists he believes he could make something genuinely "crazy" with.
Beyond the Music
Zaylevelten has talked about wanting to expand into fashion — full merch drops, clothes, bags — treating his creative identity as something built across multiple disciplines rather than confined to music alone. It's the same instinct that drives the Tenski production alter ego: an artist who wants to control every layer of what he puts into the world, brick by brick, rather than hand any of it off.
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