Departing from the pop-punk style of his 2020 album, Tickets To My Downfall, and his previous single, “emo girl”, “ay!” sees Machine Gun Kelly team up with rapper Lil Wayne for an introspective emo rap track, which serves as the third single from Machine Gun Kelly’s sixth studio album, mainstream sellout.

First teased via a snippet on Instagram, Machine Gun Kelly later performed the first verse of the song during his appearance on The Late Late Show in February 2022, to end up being released on March 4, 2022 with a music video.