Chicago in Tune is a difficult festival to describe, since it includes basically all live music happening in the city from August 19 till September 19. How that looks to you depends heavily on which shows are on your radar. The Reader has provided you with a number of assists: a show calendar spanning the […]
Tag: hip-hop
Posted inMusic
After 15 years, Chicago hip-hop duo Abstract Mindstate reunite—thanks to Kanye West
I routinely scroll through all the new music people have uploaded to Bandcamp using the “Chicago” tag, and in January I noticed something curious: Still Paying, the previously unreleased second album by local hip-hop duo Abstract Mindstate. The group recorded it in 2004 and planned to release it in ’05, but the material got shelved […]
Posted inMusic
Jyroscope and Montana Macks reflect on middle age with Happy Medium
On their new EP, Happy Medium, everyman Chicago rap group Jyroscope reflect on navigating middle age in what remains of the middle class, while the production from fellow local Montana Macks evokes the halcyon hip-hop sounds of 90s crate diggers such as Pete Rock and DJ Premier. IB Fokuz and Collasoul Structure rap about balancing […]
Posted inNews & Politics
A silence louder than words
How allegations of sexual abuse exposed cracks in the foundation of Young Chicago Authors, Free Write Arts & Literacy, and the city’s spoken word community
Posted inMusic
On the new 25, Chicago drill star G Herbo proves his skills haven’t suffered from his celebrity
Chicago rapper Herbert Wright III, better known as G Herbo, has become the kind of public figure whose smallest social media movement is fodder for the content mill. When Herb’s girlfriend, Taina Williams, recently blocked him on Instagram, the nonevent inspired blog posts at Complex, HotNewHipHop, and Bossip. Thankfully, whatever strains and pressures come with […]
Posted inMusic
Chicago rapbrarian Roy Kinsey makes music for summer celebrations with Juke Skywalker Vol. 1
Chicago rapper and librarian Roy Kinsey has drawn national attention for his remarkable concept albums and their sensitive, piercingly thoughtful lyrics. In 2018 he dropped Blackie: A Story by Roy Kinsey, a deeply personal and thoroughly researched record about race in America that’s informed by Kinsey’s family history and the Great Migration; last year he […]
Posted inMusic
Chicago hip-hop duo Udababy tap the energy of the Why? Records collective on their debut album
Judging from the energy of practically every Why? Records release, the four rappers who make up the underground Chicago hip-hop collective and label could easily spend the rest of their lives collaborating in different configurations on a half dozen albums per year. Udababy LP, the debut full-length from Why? duo Udababy, is no exception. Rappers […]
Posted inCity Life
Juneteenth celebrations and more
Upcoming events and recommendations for the next seven days
Posted inMusic
Pivot Gang’s SqueakPivot and MFn Melo map out a rewarding creative partnership on #EnRoute
Producer SqueakPivot has long been a crucial member of the Chicago hip-hop collective he’s incorporated into his stage name, applying his talents largely to mixes and DJ sets—I’m hard-pressed to think of a Pivot Gang show I’ve seen where Squeak wasn’t behind the turntables. He’s infrequently released his own music, though that began to shift […]
Posted inMusic
August Fanon and Defcee go back to hip-hop’s graffiti roots on their new EP
The new EP by Defcee and producer August Fanon, We Dressed the City With Our Names, ties Defcee’s history in Chicago’s rap and poetry scenes to the primordial hip-hop culture of New York graffiti artists depicted in the 1983 documentary Style Wars. The first track opens with a sample of a young graffiti writer explaining […]
Posted inMusic
Chicago producer Spectacular Diagnostics makes alchemical hip-hop tracks on Natural Mechanics
As Spectacular Diagnostics, Chicago producer Robert Krums specializes in hip-hop tracks that seem to circle the planet in low orbit, collecting cosmic dust that mixes with flecks of grit from our world. On his new album, Natural Mechanics (Group Bracil), he blends samples like he’s devising floral arrangements for a royal wedding—the glassy keyboard melody […]
Posted inMusic
Chicago rapper Smba rebuilds pop punk into uplifting rap
Chicago-via-Michigan rapper Smba plies pop-punk aesthetics to make hip-hop tracks soaked in melancholy. These songs could tentatively be described as Soundcloud rap, since that term (which took hold of hip-hop four years ago) has already been stretched far enough to include any MC with a Fall Out Boy T-shirt, but they have enough dimensions that […]
Posted inMusic
New Canyons return after eight years with a third album of gloomy dream pop
New Canyons return after eight years with a third album of gloomy dream pop, hip-hop historian Darrell “Artistic” Roberts interviews 1980s MC Mello D, and more.
Posted inMusic
Chicago hip-hop duo Mother Nature level up with the BoatHouse collaboration Sznz
Rappers Klevah Knox and TRUTH, known collectively as Mother Nature, have worked tirelessly to ascend through the Chicago scene over the past few years. COVID-19 threw a gigantic roadblock in their path—the same way it did for almost anyone who isn’t a billionaire using a society-shifting pandemic to get billions of dollars richer—but the duo’s […]
Posted inMusic
AyoChillMannn and Valee spotlight each other’s strengths on The Trappiest Elevator Music Ever!
A few weeks after COVID-19 shut down the country, Chicago engineer and producer Ayo “AyoChillMannn” Makinde lost his full-time job as a youth national teams administrator for U.S. Soccer. In an effort to stave off depression, he dedicated all his energy to making music, and within a year it became his career. He got a […]