Growing up in Chicago, I could remember listening to rap music and there was no mainstream Chicago rappers. Or at least not enough of them. Most rappers were either from New York or Los Angeles. All we had was Twista and R Kelly making noise at one point. The fact that the word cap is so popular is amazing to me because Chicago has been using the word cap since I was in grammar school. We would say “Stop capping” or “He tweaking” daily to our peers. I just vividly remember hoping for the day that Chicago would produce more mainstream artist. Well that day has come.

Todays music scene is heavily influenced by Trap and Drill Music. And Chicago seems to finally be in the spotlight. Seemed as if most rappers weren’t made famous by mainstream media until they were killed. There were plenty of Drill Music rappers even I had never heard of until they were publicized after death. Most journalists were chasing the dead rapper stories and real talent was being over shadowed.

Now that the hype around Drill music has died down and the landscape has become so deadly to maneuver very few underground Chicago artist have anything other to offer musically other than a new pack. Chicago rapper Hardknock is here to change that.

https://youtu.be/uqYriNU1wQ0

Releasing his most anticipated album “3620” Hardknock brings a familiar vibe to Bronzeville neighborhood he is from. Also known as the Low End the album title is named after the public housing buildings the Snoop World rapper grew up in.The very last few of Chicago’s public housing high rise buildings that weren’t demolished in the early 2000’s. The three building housing complex actually named “Lawless Gardens” stands across the lot from where the now demolished infamous Ida B Wells housing complex used to be. Overlooking Martin Luther King Drive a few miles north of “Parkway Gardens” also known as O Block.

The album features 14 tracks that give off a Chicago themed Dream Chasers type vibes. Not to say Hardknock doesn’t fit in with drill music artist but he takes aim at his opps in more subtle ways. Like on “All Bad” where he can be heard reminiscing about girls from his opps blocks having crushes on him as a kid. Throughout the album he can be heard telling familiar stories of days sitting in laundromats not being able to afford a 50 cent pop. He may be the first rapper I ever heard mention a pallet. As kids we would sleep on the floor and the area in which we laid our blankets out was referred to as a pallet. I don’t know if other regions ever branded sleeping on the floor with a slang term but sleeping on the floor is everyday life in Chicago. He mentions losing close friends and his mother throughout the whole project as well. Being teased about his mother being on drugs as a kid. Ironically he reveals she was ultimately the one who taught him how to bag and sell drugs and even brung him customers. As far fetched as most of it may sound these are stories most Chicagoland youth can relate to including myself.

https://open.spotify.com/album/0XIPVe0b37QadfzQrXLIG6