"These days, I have a hard time going back to a lot of old Chicago drill. Sure, a handful of the best rap songs and mixtapes of the 2010s came from that scene, but fire up vintage Zacktv interviews or D Gainz and A Zae Production music videos and it's like sitting through an in memoriam segment: nothing but decade-old clips of teenagers and early twentysomethings who are now dead, in jail, experiencing mental health issues, or exiled from their hometown."
"I'm not normally a you-had-to-be-there type of guy, but when G Herbo first hit YouTube as Lil Herb-a scrawny, Polo-wearing 16-year-old kid with the burly voice of a cigarette-smoking grown man-the explosive rhymes of "Kill Shit" and "Gangway" had my New York City high school on lock. Back then, outside of Wayne and Meek Mill, it was rare that our anthems were by out-of-towners, but to this day a lot of my friends still talk about Herb with the gravitas NBA prospects do Paul George."
"Looking back it makes sense-compared to, say, the Gucci-like numbness of Chief Keef or the Bone Thugs-lite rap-sing of Lil Durk, Herb's Southern influences ( Three 6 Mafia and Project Pat; I've never heard him talk about Houston rap but sometimes the hulking rasp of his voice makes me think about the Screwed Up Click dudes) were dusted with streaks of East Coast traditionalism."
Chicago drill's early era produced influential music alongside tragic outcomes for many participants, leaving surviving artists to reckon with that history. G Herbo emerged as Lil Herb at 16 with commanding vocals and explosive rhymes on tracks like "Kill Shit" and "Gangway," gaining hefty cross-city respect. Herb blends Southern influences such as Three 6 Mafia and Project Pat with East Coast traditionalism, differentiating him from peers like Chief Keef and Lil Durk. That hybrid sound and perspective have allowed Herb to adapt through rap's fast-moving micro-eras and to shift his outlook as he has aged.
Read at Pitchfork
Unable to calculate read time
Collection
[
|
...
]