Serengeti’s best feature as a lyricist is his ability to inhabit the lives of others — and not just third hand. A gruff, heavily Midwest-accented character who started out seeming like a regional jokey riff on a certain kind of middle-aged blue-collar Chicagoan, Kenny Dennis broke through thanks to a series of albums that producer Odd Nosdam helped lend an air of small-scale but fascinatingly rendered drama. Sure, Kenny is obsessed with aging-Gen X cable-TV movie and sports touchstones, and it feels like every other verse is riddled with references only Second City locals fully grasp. But it’s Kenny’s personal grudges and heartbreaks that make him a richly realized figure, less funny-voice gimmick and more real-enough regional hero.

– Nate Patrin