Later that year, Chief Keef cemented his national reputation with the commercial success of his song “ I Don’t Like.” As the lead single for Chief Keef’s debut album, “Finally Rich,” “I Don’t Like” charted on the Billboard Hot 100, accumulated tens of millions of listens online and helped drill break into the nation’s musical mainstream. The video of the boy went viral in the hip-hop community, and curious viewers furiously searched YouTube for more Chief Keef content.Ī video of one of Chief Keef’s young fans celebrating his release from prison went viral. 2, 2012, WorldStarHipHop posted a video of a young child in a hysterical fit of excitement, bounding around a room and rapping along to “Bang.” When Chief Keef’s house arrest ended, on Jan. The scene planted the seeds for hip-hop’s ascendancy in music’s digital economy.
I started to argue, to anyone that would listen, that drill music was more than shock value or a new spin on gangsta rap. What I didn’t know is that five years later, the drill subculture would be the subject of my field work as a doctoral student at Northwestern and that it would inspire me to write about the ways in which the city’s Black youth dealt with cultural, racial, economic and political oppression through inventive media production. I knew that if a 16-year-old kid had the city buzzing, it would only be a matter of time before he was famous. As I was touring the country, I noticed that everyone from back home in Chicago was asking me if I’d heard of this kid Keef who was from Washington Park. The coverage was often less than flattering.Īt the time, I was entrenched in my own hip-hop music career, rapping under the moniker Naledge in the duo Kidz in the Hall. Eventually, the national press caught on. Its vanguards – artists like Chief Keef, King Louie, G Herbo and Lil Durk – emerged as local heroes by staying tethered to the blocks and neighborhoods they rapped about on SoundCloud and YouTube. The songs became known as drill music, a genre characterized by its dark synths, booming 808 drums, seemingly off-beat, mumbled verses and war-cry choral chants. Nevertheless, the verses written and hastily disseminated on social media by Chief Keef and his peers were fast becoming a unique sort of news ticker for low-income communities of color in Chicago, detailing the turf wars, rivalries and hassles of everyday life as a Black kid growing up in the city. His Facebook profile had less than 2,000 followers, he claimed his occupation was “smokin’ dope” and he still lived with his grandmother. Yet he was almost completely unknown outside of Chicago.
45's, gotta go back to the sto'Īnd that Kush gettin' smoked, gotta go back to the sto'Ĭock back 'cause there's trouble, my mans gon' blow The track displayed a rawness unlike anything else that was released at the time, and you couldn’t stroll down the streets of Chicago’s South Side without hearing Bang’s lyrics pulsing from the stereos of cars rolling by: Choppers gettin' let offģ0 clips and them. He also had a dedicated Twitter following among Chicago high school students. He’d released a song, “ Bang,” which had more than 400,000 views on YouTube, along with a mixtape that he’d recorded in a friend’s bedroom. Glory Bridge (feat.Before he was arrested in December 2011, Chief Keef was a 16-year-old budding rap star. You can listen to the whole album RIGHT NOW on Spotify and Apple Music…or, BETTER YET, you can keep hanging out with us at TMT and just listen to it via the embed below. <3Ġ7. Meanwhile, Dedication features guest appearances from Tadoe, A Boogie Wit da Hoodie, and Lil Yachty, as well as production from D. A brand new mixtape, Mansion Music, has also already been promised for release this year.
#Chief keef dedication full free series#
The tape shares its name with a series of mixtapes Lil Wayne released during his mid-aughts imperial phase, and the kinship between Sosa’s 2017 output and that part of Weezy’s career perhaps does not need to be pointed out.Īnd oh, just in case you’ve never read Tiny Mix Tapes before: Keef’s other three mixtapes of the year are Two Zero One Seven, Thot Breaker, and The W (which also shared its title with another album: Wu-Tang Clan’s The W!)Īnd don’t worry about 2018. His inscrutable artistic whims have led him to drop a fourth mixtape of 2017, fittingly named Dedication.
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