Tosten Burks killed Walter White. Few things complicate and challenge the blog-rap come-up more than the immediacy of expectations. A little hype goes a long way in turning writers into prophets and young artists into pressure-cookers. More taxing yet is when the pressure simmers as quickly as it came. Nineteen-year-old Hyde Park native Vic Mensa’s […]

If you’re keeping track of the James Blake rap collaborations, his union with Chance the Rapper is superior to his one with RZA. But the RZA told me earlier today in an interview that “the world has the power to make it bong bong for everyone.” I was feeling sick and now I am healed, […]

Chance The Rapper released one of the years best albums. You already know. But you may not know how he got to where he is today. These illustrations from Brad Beatson will help.  When school said fuck Chance, Chance said fuck school (Graduation night teachers Ferris Bueller’d my name, Fun fact / I’m never going back […]

ShowYouSuck is a rapper from Chicago. Listen to any one of his One Man Pizza Party releases (there are now four of them) and you’ll quickly hear the variety of his influences, both musically and culturally. There’s a Southern and West Coast feel, merged with the latest trap sound. Yet Show still finds a way […]

Will Hagle is Jeezy-laughing at life. Mick Jenkins might be the Al Capone of modern Chicago gangsta rap. Elegantly dressed, yet menacing. Over a string-heavy, darkly cinematic beat that sounds like an outtake from Cage’s Movies For The Blind, Jenkins explains what he will do to you if he catches you on the street without […]

Tosten Burks prefers root beer. I don’t think Vic Mensa thought his best friend would blow up before him. There’s just something about the way he goons around backstage at Chance shows waiting to spit his Cocoa Butter Kisses verse, not smiling, not really dancing, not even during the obligatory all-of-SaveMoney-wilds-out-on-stage moments. He’s still getting […]

When Jordan Pedersen says he has bitches on the phone, he’s referring to unpleasant customer service people. In Fist Stick Knife Gun, Geoffrey Canada talks about life in the Bronx before the proliferation of guns, about how you could get into a fight with another kid from the neighborhood without fear of getting shot up. […]

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 […]

Will Hagle did not pump this up like Dee Brown. The rest of the world was introduced to Chicago’s harrowing new form of gangster rap when Kanye decided to remix Chief Keef’s “I Don’t Like.” The song found ‘Ye firing off a barrage of names of young rappers from Chicago. Then he stepped off the […]

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’ […]