Jordan Pedersen plans to name a mixtape after an obscure Omar Epps movie. There’s blood in Chicago. The question for Chicago rappers is not, “Do we deal with it?” but rather, “How do you deal with it?” Chief Keef and the Glory Boyz have taken to recreating it, their catalog an Apocalypse Now evocation of what it feels […]

Jordan Pedersen sorta hopes the Save Money crew is a YN Rich Kids-style after-school program to get kids to save their money. Save Money crew member Dally Auston enlists the help of OJ Hays (who also did the visuals for Chance the Rapper’s appropriately named “Good Ass Intro“) for his video for “99 Cent.” Hays’ […]

Jordan Pedersen lives his life in the margins, and that metaphor is really heavy-handed. I’m of two minds about the maneuver Kansas City rapper Gee Watts is pulling off with “Watts R.I.O.T.” On the one hand, on a humanity level, it’s really nice to see a rapper like Kendrick co-sign an underground rapper he’s been […]

Jordan Pedersen prefers screaming goat samples to Gotye samples. It always bugs me when artists get valorized for being “prolific.”I get that some people produce at a greater clip than others but, to a certain degree, everyone’s prolific. The point isn’t whether you come up with a lot of ideas, it’s how many of those […]

Jordan Pedersen is still in love with the violin player from the “Overnight Celebrity” video. For some reason, I find that I like to scowl through my day: I try to avoid being a total dick to my coworkers, but work can be dumb, the weather in Chicago is fucking terrible, and SERIOUSLY MY LIFE […]

Jordan Pedersen tries to go to chuch every Sunday, but sometimes he’s hungover. This is Sunday dinner rap, draining cheap beers with old friends rap, wood-paneled basement rap, all Cooley High references and advice from dad: Tree may be taking shots, but he’s taking comfort in homies at the bar and sweet soul music. Tremaine […]

If Jordan Pedersen talked much, you’d probably think he graduated college, which he did. Prior to “Team Dope,” Rockboy K9 mostly traded in somber polemics over equally downcast beats. Whereas this one flips a comparatively breezy Mayer Hawthorne sample into the kind of dynamic obstacle course that I could see Gangsta Gibbs leaping all over. […]

Jordan Pedersen briefly considered going by the handle “URL Sweatshirt.” If you’re like me, the first thing you thought when you heard Chief Keef’s “I Don’t Like” for the first time was, “This shit is from Chicago?” I grew up in Chicago – the suburbs actually, to keep it one hundred – and it didn’t […]