I’m rollin’, all my niggas rollin’
.30 clip and them hollow tips have his ass sitting in Roseland
Floating off a pill , pussies better chill
My niggas in the field; you might get killed
This little bit of lyrical excellence comes from a new, quite young Chicago rapper. It’s not Chief Keef, though. Lil Mouse is a thirteen year old rapper who went viral fairly recently for his video right here, Get Smoked, which is still getting a lot of people riled up.
I’m not gonna be the kind of person who is going to act concerned in the way that somebody’s parent(s) would freak out over a teenager smoking weed. Hell, Chief Keef is only 17 and is talking about popping E pills, and I really couldn’t care less. We’ve reviewed and interviewed fifteen year old rappers who have done their thing. Everyone in high school had that one kid in their grade (or WERE that person) who snorted coke, did dope, or whatever within grades 9-12. Yet, this kid is only THIRTEEN years old and rapping about this shit. WHY?
The debate really came into the public eye when Chicago’s Lupe Fiasco, someone who seemingly couldn’t be further removed from the side of rap that Keef and his ilk represent, and at the same time is from the same geographical location they are and thus probably understands what a lot of people might view as novelty a lot better than the average person jamming out to “I Don’t Like” might, said this in a recent video:
Chief Keef scares me. Not him specifically, but just the culture that he represents. Specifically in Chicago. 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, the gangsters, and the ones you see killing each other. And the murder rate in Chicago is skyrocketing and you see who’s doing it and perpetrating it, they all look like Chief Keef.”
Most people would think Lupe is being too preachy and judgemental in his opinion – that in the same way that he’s driven off a large portion of fans over the years for getting only more insular and “trying too hard” in the eyes of some, Lupe’s made the final step towards becoming a Bill Cosby-esque “you kids these days are out of control” type. Hell, I did too, and as a matter of fact, I originally wrote the rest of this entire article to reflect that at first. But in the end, I was schooled on the fact that Chicago is becoming somewhat of a battlefield. I might live in Bed-Stuy, but at the end of the day, no matter if I hear gunshots when I go to bed or not, I’m supremely ignorant for writing Chief Keef and Lil Mouse off as “hard-acting rappers” rather than products of their environment.
I loved the fuck out of Chief Keef’s I Don’t Like (and I’m sure many people including Chicago’s Yeezy himself did too) but at some point, whether it be Lupe or somebody nearly Keef’s same age writing on a website (ahem), somebody has to put their foot down. Should we be accepting of Lil Mouse’s warnings to please don’t get smoked or accept the fact that Chief Keef glorifies shit like “bitch we trippin’ E, fuck who don’t like” at the tender age of seventeen? I’m not one to judge. As a matter of fact, I believe that these rappers only say what they do as a result of being raised in the Chicago scene, which is so rampant with crime.
I’m not fucking joking when I say that Chicago’s murder scene has gained much more traction than anyone in Brooklyn could ever predict in their own hood. That’s right. Make an effort to click the last three links I have demonstrated, as they all show the truth at hand. 13 Murders in 30 minutes? A 38% rise in murders? White people, and even locals alike, would never even dream of such crime happening in their neighborhood, even in the toughest areas of Brooklyn, Bronx, and Queens (Manhattan (aside from Harlem and Washington Heights) and Staten Island can fuck off for a second.) It’s much worse than anybody who has gotten robbed by gunpoint (myself included) in Bushwick could ever imagine. There are kids in high school forming gangs because the scene in Chicago has moved from recruiting the kids on the street to recruiting the kids in school. That is what is truly fucked up right now. I don’t care if some motherfucker robbed you or stole your bike in the past week, because you’re safe as long as you’re not getting shot up after school like Chicago kids are. That’s the truth. Pay attention.
I’m not hating on the music that these kids make. Chief Keef has inspired rappers like Sasha Gohard and many others to do their thing, get big, and become young entrepreneurs that make 100x the amount I make at my shitty $8.50 an hour job as a glorified cashier/cook/delivery boy. Hell, “I Don’t Like” had enough of an impact that Kanye West himself came down from whatever spaceship him and Kim are currently holed up in to have the G.O.O.D Music crew do a remix of it. However, I don’t think it’s justified. Sure, Keef has gained his share of fans and rightfully so, as he can rap (As I said, I loved the fuck outta I Don’t Like, and so did everyone else listening to Hot 97 and Power 105.1). Speaking of rap entrepreneurs, Willow Smith may make thousands of more dollars than I do at ten years younger, but she doesn’t rap lines like “fake shrooms that’s that shit I don’t like” (Chief Keef) or “[I'll] BBQ his ass like a grill” (Lil Mouse). I’m not going to fucking lie, I am scared as shit about the message these kids are bringing.
It took me a lot not to write an entire article about how “wild” and “crazy” the Chicago rap scene really is like Vice might, (complete with pictorials of the kids by Terry Richardson, of course). Because at the end of the day, this shit really is wild, and not in a kind of “last night’s loft party was so crazy I ended up with a nostril full of coke and DXM” wild – I mean fucking WILD, for real, a kind of wild that people really need to pay attention to and not only vibe out to whenever I Don’t Like comes on and Young Choppa’s beat makes all the asses drop. I really wish that people would think about shit seriously when they realize that Keef is only seventeen years old (and with a kid, no less.). I wish that people would take the concentration off of the coasts and focus on cities like Chicago. And most of all, I really hope that people aren’t ignorant and actually realize how fucked up the situation is over there. Sure, your “block” is “fucked up” and has “a lot of problems” but at the end of the day, you can move a stop further from the Montrose L, can’t you?
I’m not trying to belittle anything. But the reality of it is, for now, Brooklyn ain’t got it so bad as much as Chicago does. People there are dying left and right. Hell, I’ve seen more arrests for open containers than murders living across from the Marcy Projects. I just want to bring to light that the fact that a certain part of America is struggling, and struggling hard. Now, the gangs are moving from the streets and into High Schools, and that’s exactly what videos like Keef’s and Lil Mouse’s shows. America is fucked up. Chicago is even more fucked up as a result. Barry Obama might be from there, but nothing has really changed. As a matter of fact, it’s gotten worse in Chicago. It’s time that we actually give a fuck and stand up so that we don’t get videos like Get Smoked popping up every week.
(Shoutout to fellow Superchief comrade and Chicagoan Liz O’Malley for her knowledge on Chicago violence and insight on this article.)
- Will Medonis
