S. Samuel
Grammy-winning rapper Lupe Fiasco recently offered his take on the buzz surrounding Chicago rap newcomers like Rockie Fresh and why teenager Chief Keef has him worried about the culture.
In Lupe’s perspective, Chief Keef’s appearance and dark content are a reflection of Chicago’s bad side.
“I don’t know too much about Rockie Fresh — Chief Keef scares me. Not him specifically, but just the culture that he represents, specifically in Chicago,” Lupe said when asked for his take on Chi-Town newcomers. “And I don’t speak this about any other city because I’m not from there. But like my family lives in Chicago. So my nephews, my cousins, my friends, and my peoples they all in those hoods that he represents. When you drive through Chicago the hoodlums, I don’t want to call Chief Keef a hoodlum, but ‘the’ hoodlums, the gangsters, and the ones you see killing each other — the murder rate in Chicago is skyrocketing and you see who’s doing it and perpetrating it, they all look like Chief Keef.” (#Rap Attack)
Last month, Chicago rapper Rhymefest defended penning a blog post on Chief Keef’s violent content and their city’s struggles.
“I meant to say what I said. It’s really not about Chief Keef as much as it is about exploitation. It’s no coincidence that one of the most violent periods Chicago has ever seen, that this is what represents us musically. This is what represents us as a people. We have a history here of Curtis Mayfield, Kanye West — and so then when we get to senseless violence, the prison industrial complex is real,” Fest explained in an interview. “I don’t have anything against any particular kind of music. My problem is the imbalance of the music that we get. So if all of the diet of the music that you get is kill kill kill and we’re going to glorify that, then that’s what we are conditioning our shorties and they’ll never end. They’ll do it, they’ll sing about it, they’ll rap about it and that’ll be it.” (WGCI)
Windy City videographer A Zae recently talked to SOHH about the town’s violent perception.
“As far as the music — it’s entertainment. As far as the violence that goes on in Chicago happens in every city, but because of everything that’s going on in Chicago they tryna bring the music down because there’s more attention on us right now. But as far as artists, there really ain’t no beef. For the most part, the people that are really out there in Chicago like King Louie, Chief Keef, Lil Reese … it’s like they all work together. There’s certain groups and cliques, but everybody works with their own people.” (SOHH Singled Out)
Around mid-June, Keef officially announced a partnership with Interscope Records.
Chief Keef already told you what he don’t like, but Interscope Records, that’s that sh– he do like. On Saturday (June 16) just hours before he took the stage at Birthday Bash with T.I. the Chicago upstart inked a deal with Jimmy Iovine‘s label and gave RapFix the exclusive. “I’ve been talkin’ to a lot of labels, but I just noticed that Interscope got people like 50, Eminem,” Keef told us after he got off stage performing his breakout track, “I Don’t Like.” The teenage spitter also revealed that he signed a publishing deal with Dr. Dre. Keef was recruited by a few labels including Cash Money and T.I.’s Grand Hustle. (RapFix)
Check out Lupe Fiasco’s interview below:
