Chicago-born, Los Angeles-based rapper Open Mike Eagle is a seemingly inexhaustible font of laugh-out-loud one-liners, and he delivers as always on his latest album, Component System With the Auto Reverse (on his own Auto Reverse label). You need to be careful drinking anything while listening to it, lest uncomfortable snorking ensue when the rapper gets […]
Tag: Kanye West
Posted inMusic
‘It hits different’: Michael Vincent Waller meshes postminimalism and trap
Sampling is a staple technique for music producers, and creates stepping-stones for the next artists in line. It also allows for genre-morphing mixes that look baffling on paper but can give a song an iconic appeal or breathe new life into it. And it can open doors for audiences, leading them to new sounds and […]
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
Chicago indie rapper D2x expands his palette on his debut album, The Color Blue
Chicago rapper D2x has poured all 23 years of his life so far into his debut album, The Color Blue. Across its 13 tracks, he delivers lines about his childhood in the south suburbs, his time playing basketball as a student at Western Illinois University, his struggles with depression, his faith in God, his recent […]
Posted inNews & Politics
Tales from the polls
What a Reader contributor saw as a first-time election judge
Posted inMusic
Thirty-five moments that brought Chicago music to the world
The Year of Chicago Music has had less music in it than anybody anticipated, but we still have plenty to celebrate.
Posted inMusic
Rhymefest’s greatest moment in Chicago music history
Veteran rapper and activist Rhymefest remembers an all-star festival by and for the community.
Posted inMusic
Building on the pillars of Blue Groove Lounge
An oral history of DJ Jesse de la Peña’s foundational Blue Groove Lounge hip-hop night, on the occasion of its belated 25th birthday parties
Posted inMusic
The best Chicago albums of the 2010s: the critics’ ballots
Here’s where to see who voted for what and how the points got divvied up.
Posted inMusic
The best Chicago albums of the 2010s
The Reader polled dozens of critics to arrive at an absolutely indisputable ranked list of several hundred records that will definitely not start any arguments.
Posted inMusic
Gifts to teach hip-hop heads their history
Each of these reissues helps unfold a different chapter in the rich narrative of the Chicago hip-hop scene.
Posted inMusic
Fighting for Chicago’s place in hip-hop history
Darrell “Artistic” Roberts of Chi-ROCK Nation has worked to document Chicago hip-hop culture for more than three decades—and now he’s finally publishing a book.
Posted inMusic
The gospel according to Mama Lou
Lou Della Evans-Reid spent nearly 40 years as minister of music for Fellowship Missionary Baptist Church, but even at age 89 this gospel trailblazer isn’t done spreading the good news.
Posted inMusic
Jay Wood of the Freesole collective on a rapper pushing the narrative of hip-hop
Current musical obsessions of Jay Wood and S.O.S of the Freesole collective and Reader intern Aaron Allen