Supa Bwe’s ear for melody and taste for sweet hooks make him one of the city’s best rappers. Since breaking out in 2014, he’s amassed a cult audience with performances that blend screamo intensity and R&B sensuality, and he was doing it years before Soundcloud rap introduced a cohort of shouty rappers who sounded like […]
Tag: Mick Jenkins
Posted inBest of Chicago
Best rapper (temporarily) banned from YouTube
Rapper, producer, DJ, and talk-show host GreenSllime has built a cult following with his muddy, sample-heavy production and crass rhymes. In the past few years he’s made incredible strides toward establishing his voice as a solo rapper, but he’s already been an unsung hero in the local scene for more than a decade, operating mostly […]
Posted inMusic
The year’s last Bandcamp Friday arrives
Since the start of the pandemic, Bandcamp has passed along its usual share of sales revenue to artists and labels 17 times, usually on the first Friday of the month. You probably already knew that, since you clicked on a story about the 18th such Bandcamp Friday—but you might not be aware that the site […]
Posted inMusic
Chicago rapper Mick Jenkins points out the Elephant in the Room
On “Stiff Arm,” three songs into Mick Jenkins’s new Elephant in the Room (Free Nation/Cinematic Music Group), Chicago performer and activist Ayinde Cartman delivers a scorching rumination that doubles as thesis statement for the album, identifying a key paradox of Black life in America. “Our existence is the elephant in every boardroom,” Cartman declares. “How […]
Posted inMusic
TheMIND reclaims his mental real estate
On his first album in four years, Chicago singer theMIND digs in against the disenfranchisement of Black voices.
Posted inMusic
Musa Reems and David Ashley bolster the lineup for one of the winter’s best Chicago rap shows
Chicago rapper-singer Rich Jones brought his multigenerational monthly hip-hop series All Smiles to a close in April 2019, but its spirit lives on at this Subterranean show he’s headlining. The bill includes great local MCs who might not otherwise have any reason to cross paths, beginning with up-and-comer Musa Reems. On his recent self-released EP, […]
Posted inMusic
Mick Jenkins fills the short Circus EP with considered, complex verses
With his 2014 breakout release, The Water[s], Chicago rapper Mick Jenkins demonstrated that his complex vision and deep lyrics benefit from the large canvas of a full-length record. That said, he cooks on EPs too. At the top of January, he dropped The Circus (Free Nation/Cinematic Music Group), which despite running less than 20 minutes […]
Posted inMusic
Operation Hennessy digs a new channel for Chicago hip-hop
Keen-eyed rapper Qari hooks up with producer Green Sllime for Operation Hennessy—and opens the floodgates on his friend’s reservoir of irreverent old-school beats.
Posted inMusic
Mick Jenkins shows why he’s one of the best rappers in Chicago with Pieces of a Man
Mick Jenkins has become one of the best rappers in the city (if not the country) by making music that comes across as if he’s inviting you into a deep conversation. Because his songs that take on race, consent, systemic injustice, and black history, among other subjects, you can’t passively listen to them—they require the […]
Posted inMusic
Chicago rap crew Pivot Gang honor a fallen comrade
Pivot Gang cofounder John Walt is memorialized in Saba’s Care for Me—and by an arts nonprofit that bears his name, which holds its flagship concert fund-raiser this weekend.
Posted inBlogs
Lyrical Lemonade’s first outdoor festival: scads of Soundcloud rap, thousands of teenagers, and hours of waiting for food
Three Reader writers hash out the highs and lows of the Summer Smash, which showcased a young rap scene that’s innovating a vital new sound but also celebrating alleged abusers.
Posted inBlogs
Dispensary block parties, THC dinners, and more 4/20-friendly events
Here are all the green goings-on Friday 4/20.
Posted inBlogs
Mick Jenkins commands his own future on the brand-new EP Or More; the Frustration
Chicago rapper Mick Jenkins is ending his deal with Brooklyn indie label Cinematic, and he’s self-released two EPs that demonstrate where he’s going next.
Posted inMusic
A people’s history of Kevin Coval
Louder Than a Bomb cofounder Kevin Coval in the words of people in Chicago’s poetry, spoken-word, and hip-hop scenes whose lives he’s touched
Posted inMusic
The Vic screens the Wax Trax! Records documentary before it’s even finished
The Vic screens the Wax Trax! Records documentary before it’s even finished, Chicago expat Alex Wiley returns to headline a hip-hop party at the Promontory, and more.