[Interview] Hollywood Holt Speaks On The Origin of The Treated Crew

Hollywood Holt
photo by Eric Sawitoski

As we await the release of the official Treated Crew album and the latest installment of the Treated Crowns, interest in the Chicago based crew is at an all-time high.  While they’ve just recently popped up on blogs, and artist to watch lists within the last calendar year, the Treated Crew is not new to this by any sense of the word. In reality, Treated Crew is almost a decade deep, with members like Hollywood Holt, Mic Terror, and Million $ Mano, being a major part of Chicago’s music scene and leaders in its current resurgence.

On Friday, I talked to Hollywood Holt about The Treated Crew, and its formation.  “I came up with this shit randomly,” he said during an appearance on my Closed Sessions radio show.

“Me and Mano, 10, 11 years ago, we were just chilling out and we were talking, ‘remember when everybody used to say ‘Treated…’ We started saying the shit all the time, and I started popping with the music shit.  I made a song called “Caked Up”. One of the verses went, “treating n***as is what I do, treating n***as with my Treated Crew.’  I just wrote it because it rhymed and I was actually drunk as hell when I wrote that joint. I came home from a show faded, sat in front of the computer, I was just listening to beats and I was just talking shit.  Mano was like, ‘that’s cold as hell.  We should make beat like ‘treated crew…’ Then we just started calling ourselves Treated Crew, like 8 years ago.  It’s funny. We made hats and now everybody’s like ‘Treated Crew!’ Yeah we’ve been Treated Crew forever, now we just got the hats.”

Hollywood also spoke on some of the ethics behind Treated Crew, how to get a Treated Crown and how to get a Treated Crown taken away.  He also broke down how the crew is more than just rappers and emcees, but made up of producers, videographers, writers, graf artists, just creative and successful people in many avenues.

“Mano kind of unified it for everyone,” Holt said.  “Treated Crew, this is our conglomerated.  We’re all solo artists. We’re not a rap crew… We’re real brothers.”

Listen to the full interview below for more info as well Holt’s thoughts on Mano’s famous twitter rants, some of his favorite Chicago artists, and a guest appearance from Chella H.