Chicago Tribune Acknowledges The Progression of the #ChicagoMusic Scene

Chicago's insurgent rap scene is all the rage, and Chief Keef is at the head of it

Chief Keef, the most influential name on a Chicago rap scene that has suddenly acquired a national footprint, does not want to be interviewed. It's been rumored that the first piece of advice Kanye West gave the 16-year-old rapper was to stop doing interviews, and he has seemingly heeded his very successful counterpart's word. His management team pleads and cajoles. The young rapper shakes his head, almost imperceptibly, "no," a petulant teen with a superstar's disposition.

It is 6 p.m. on the final, sold-out day of the recent Pitchfork Music Festival and AraabMuzik is onstage making some 18,000 people dance. Keef and his crew of 16 — three managers, his publicist, recently signed rapper Lil Reese, his sometimes producer 18-year-old Young Chop, a bevy of friends — have just arrived. Keef and Reese are scheduled to make an unannounced two-song cameo at the end of AraabMuzik's set. This will be the biggest hometown audience that Keef and Reese have ever played to, before the diverse, indie-focused Pitchfork audience.

If you don't know who Chief Keef is, you will hear more about him soon. Last month, the South Side-born Keith Cozart (Sosa to his friends), signed a record deal with Interscope Records. The deal includes his life rights for a biopic, his own line of headphones ("Beats by Keef") and his own label to issue records of other artists in his crew — effectively making him the youngest label head ever.

Chief Keef is the prince of violent Chicago rap, his insurgent popularity raising the profiles of a dozen other local artists with him — no mean feat given that it had been six years since the last Chicago rapper got a major label deal. Since February, nine acts have been signed, with a handful of others in the works. Some, like King Louie, have put years into developing their careers. Others, like Lil Reese, have been signed off the strength of a verse and proximity to Keef.

The last rash of outside interest in Chicago hip-hop that even broached the current level was roughly 15 years ago, when elder statesmen Do Or Die and Twista were fresh prospects. Suddenly, where there was no ladder to the national spotlight and little evidence of a Chicago scene, there is now a cottage industry of managers, labels and burgeoning talent putting the city on the map.

Chicago's scene has always been noted for either the ones that got away (West, Common), who left to find success, or the almost-huge, such as Twista and Lupe Fiasco. Rappers who make it big while staying home are rare. But this Keef-centered scene that has popped up without the help of any current movers and shakers, fueled entirely by mixtapes and underground shows. And it's all happening without the blessing of any former Chicago rappers such as West, who remixed a Keef song only to have the tune's producer complain that the Grammy winner changed the feel of the song.

Keef became a phenomenon via YouTube this year with the low-budget video for "I Don't Like" (now with almost 10 million views), a song full of bleak, menacing rhymes. It also features a few frames of the young rapper with a handgun in his grip — made all the more notable given that for the first half of the year he was on house arrest for a gun charge.

For Larry Jackson, an executive vice president at Interscope who signed Keef, his initial reaction was visceral.

"It scared me," Jackson said. "And I knew it was going to be huge. It felt disturbingly powerful. Nobody really talks about Top 40 music anymore because the music is like wallpaper — it doesn't make you feel anything. ('I Don't Like') pushes people, but it also resonates."

Jackson said the reason they gave Keef his own label was in order to grab other Chicago talent that comes bubbling up. "We did it to widen the net — so that anything that comes within 50 feet of Keef, we can catch it."

The label has signed deals with rappers Fredo and SD, who are key parts of Keef's crew, GBE (Glory Boys Entertainment). Lil Reese and Lil Durk both recently signed to Def Jam.

Lil Durk was released from jail last month, after serving two months on a weapons charge.

For Interscope and the other labels that were courting the young rapper, Chief Keef's legal woes just added credibility to his swaggering image. While part of the appeal of this new wave of Chicago rappers is just that — the newness — hip-hop fans are eager to hear the real stories of the street, songs that are a true-to-life reaction to what's happening in Chicago, a city suffering a summer of staggering gun violence. Keef's gun charge, for better or worse, adds authenticity to the biography he relates in his songs.

"You look at the news and see who is doing most of these killings — he fits that profile," said Larry "Larro" Wilson, head of Lawless, the South Side record label that is home to King Louie and Katie Got Bandz. "Does it help that Keef is on house arrest? Absolutely."

At Pitchfork, as is the custom in hip-hop, Keef and Reese's handlers have demanded payment in full before the two MCs take the stage. This is not how things usually work at Pitchfork. Festival organizer (and Pitchfork majordomo) Ryan Schrieber is pacing in tight circles, drawing hard on his cigarette and impatiently redialing his iPhone. The person with the money and the contracts is not picking up. For these two songs, Keef is rumored to be picking up his regular show fee of $10,000. According to Schrieber, even at that per-song rate, Keef isn't the most expensive
act on the bill today. "Not even close," he says, smiling and shaking his head.

Between his concerts and purported $3 million album deal, Keef, who dropped out of high
school, is on pace to out-earn President Barack Obama in 2012.

For 19-year-old Lil Reese, it all seems a bit unreal.

Reese has known Keef since childhood. The two are still close; they have an air of brotherly collusion between them. Waiting backstage at Pitchfork, Reese's demeanor contrasts with Keef's — while no less a talent, he still seems like a kid, unaffected and wowed by the attention. Up until two days before the gig, he didn't know what Pitchfork was or that the music festival and e-zine of the same name were even a big deal — until he retweeted the e-zine's review of his new mixtape and noticed Pitchfork's nearly 2 million Twitter followers.

Backstage Reese is listless and wants pizza before he hits the stage but doesn't know where to get it. His manager J-Boogie presents him with the show contracts, which Reese
signs atop a garbage can lid.

The big difference between Keef and Reese is that Reese didn't expect this fame.

For Reese, the main thing that has determined his life and music is also the same thing he most wants to     communicate to the rest of Chicago and the world.

"I never felt safe," says Reese. "Still don't."

J-Boogie arrives and begins herding the dozen-plus group toward the stage, "It's time." Reese and Keef walk side by side in their spotless, head-to-toe white outfits — with Keef's popped-collar look urbane, more country club than in-the-club.

In Keef and Reese, Chicago has finally gotten the pop ambassadors it deserves — swaggering teenage wonders tapping into the zeitgeist like experts — telling their truth in blunt, steely lines.

The first measure of "I Don't Like" booms and about 18,000 pairs of hands reach for the sky, and scream as soon as the pair walk out from the wings. For the 10 minutes they are onstage, they are magnetic, Keef is incandescent — a natural — and suddenly, they are done.

Walking off the stage, Keef finally agrees to answer one question. Asked how it feels to have just played to his biggest hometown audience yet, he replies without pausing, "This? This ain't s---."