Harold Stallworth still has a ringtone. Throughout the Clinton era, rap music and telephones were a heavenly match. Mobb Deep’s “Party Over,” Biggie Smalls’ “Warning,” Danja Mowf’s “Phone Tag,” Medina Green’s “Crosstown Beef,” The Firm’s “Phone Tap,” and Capone-N-Noreaga’s “Phone Time” were recorded in a world when jacks still had an air of mystique about […]

Unless you’re a teenaged rap fan in the murder capital of the Midwest, it’s difficult to keep track of who exactly is in The Treated Crew. In fact, it’s difficult to keep all of Chicago’s crews apart, if you don’t have an affinity for deep dish pizza. The Treated Crew was masterminded by Kanye’s DJ, […]

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 […]

Pretty sure that Lil Durk did not intend this as the anti-“867-5309,” but it’s a lot more fun if you imagine it that is. I’m still riding for Durk as the Drill rapper for people who don’t like drill rap. He’s gone full sad robot over the last couple releases, which adds an eerie sinister […]

Kyle Ellison told Tony the Tiger not to lie. Three months after Chance the Rapper’s Acid Rap and specific images still linger in my brain. There’s the fear of Chicago summers, morosely depicted in “Paranoid’s” busy beaches and crackling fireworks. There’s the warmth of a mother’s love, just out of grasp on “Cocoa Butter Kisses”, […]

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 […]

“I can’t do no shows because they say I terrify my city…they say I terrify my city.” Jonah Bromwich recently covered Durk’s string of singles, so there is no need to repeat. But Durk and Paris Bueller create anthems like few other rapper-producer duos. Of course, there is also Young Chop and Keef. Who knew […]