There’s a mess of local mixtapes dropping in the next couple weeks I’ve been waiting to add to my regular listening rotation, such as Lil Chris’s Money Talks, ShowYouSuck’s One Man Pizza Party 4, and Lucki Ecks’s Alternative Trap. Right now I’m stuck on the latest full-length from Evanston-reared MC Probcause, The Recipe Volume 2, and it’s looking like the mixtape is going to stick around in my playlist cycle.
Probcause is a skilled rapper who sometimes lets his rhymes roll out of his mouth at a blurry pace or taps the brakes and spits lackadaisically. He’s got a sprightly, elastic flow, and during certain moments on The Recipe Volume 2 his bouncing raps are reminiscent of the cartoonish flying rubber that Robin Williams’s character invents in Flubber. The Recipe Volume 2 is a great showcase of Probcause’s talents, and it also offers a fantastic snapshot of Chicago’s hip-hop community. Probcause roped in an impressive list of local contributors, including Chance the Rapper, Psalm One, Scheme, Legit, Martin Sky, ShowYouSuck, and the Palmer Squares. These folks bring plenty of fantastic moments to the mixtape that I keep latching onto (such Action Bronson rapping about lobster bacon on “Three Course Meal,” or the way the sweet voice of D.C. soul singer Diggs Duke glides through “Underestimated”), but the one I’m currently obsessed with is the interlude from local poet Kevin Coval about, among other things, the local “Studs Terkels with verses.” Stream all of The Recipe Volume 2 below.