A lot of theories about how Chicago hip-hop was supposed to operate have been shattered by the events of the past decade—the idea that only one local rapper in a generation could make it big, for instance, or the insistence that the city had a singular sound. While drill became the dominant underground wave, proving that young Chicago rappers and producers with few means or connections could build their own cottage industry outside the mainstream, a panoply of other artists showed how many dimensions the scene actually has: the Era devised “footworking with words,” DLow brought bopping’s euphoric sound to the Billboard Hot 100, and Supa Bwe mined the melodic aggression of screamo years before “Soundcloud rap” broke.…
A lot of theories about how Chicago hip-hop was supposed to operate have been shattered by the events of the past decade—the idea that only one local rapper in a generation could make it big, for instance, or the insistence that the city had a singular sound. While drill became the dominant underground wave, proving that young Chicago rappers and producers with few means or connections could build their own cottage industry outside the mainstream, a panoply of other artists showed how many dimensions the scene actually has: the Era devised “footworking with words,” DLow brought bopping’s euphoric sound to the Billboard Hot 100, and Supa Bwe mined the melodic aggression of screamo years before “Soundcloud rap” broke.…