Mike Golden & Friends: "Hey Jane"
Later this month, Mike Golden & Friends will release their latest project, Utopia. Today, we get the lead single from the project, released today via the Internet. Featuring fellow Chicagoans Vic Mensa and Donnie Trumpet, "Hey Jane" is an emphatic play on dealing with the relationship with "Jane". Golden offers up an inspired, soulful chorus as Mensa continues to slaughter a wide variety of beats with his frenetic, changing rhyme scheme and easily relatable lyrics. Donnie adds his pieces in the background, helping to build the overall aesthetic of the track. If nothing else, "Hey Jane" should get you up out of bed to face the winter weather. Check out the track below, along with an exclusive behind the scenes video at Classick Studios from Davy Greenberg at Elephilms.
Chance The Rapper Covers The Source Magazine
It's 2014 now, but not much has changed for young Chance The Rapper, as the accolades continue to roll in. The Chicago native was recently named The Source Magazine's fourth "Rookie of the Year" in the publication's latest edition. Posing as his own Ventriloquist dummy, Chance joins the likes of past winners, Kendrick Lamar, Big Sean and Wiz Khalifa. Currently, Chance is preparing to settle into some new digs out west in Los Angeles before diving head first into an already-packed 2014 that may just see him switch from the "Rookie of the Year" cover to the "Man of the Year". Only time will tell on that one, but for now check out the excerpt from the story and pick up a print edition on January 7.
[Video] Freddie Gibbs: "Deuces"
Photo by Virgil Solis
It's been a minute since we've heard something fresh from Indiana's finest, Freddie Gibbs. This time around, the seminal gangsta rap artist of our time teams up with the mastermind of the drill sound in Young Chop for this dark, ominous track. In what seems like a match made in heaven for Chop and Gibbs to get together on a track, the song is as gritty and street-conscious as you'd expect and another solid get for Chop, who recently put out a track with Taylor Gang's Wiz Khalifa. The video for the single dropped yesterday and has ESGN Films’, Danny Manhattan following Gangsta Gibbs from his hometown of Gary, Ind., to nearby Chicago. Take a dip into Freddie Gibbs' world in the video below and pick up the track via iTunes.
[youtube id="zzr3c8jFPKo" mode="normal" align="center"]
[RH Feature] Marrow: The Second Time Around
Photo byNolis
Six months ago the dream was all but dead.
Kids These Days officially broke up on May 8, 2013. Two days later I was behind the wheel of my Chevy Trailblazer heading north to Wisconsin. The seven piece funk/soul/rock/hip-hop group that had captivated a generation of a city was no more, and they had retreated north to make sense of it all.
As I drove through the newly warm spring air with drummer Greg Landfair, his girlfriend and a friend, we listened to the eclectic sounds of Traphouse Rock and Hard Times. The group had spanned nearly four years together, essentially amounting to what would later be referred to as their “college days”. With college over, we pulled up to a hastily-erected sign on the side of a seldom-used street in what seemed like the middle of nowhere of Wisconsin to return to where it all began.
As we pulled up to the main house of the Postock farm, the ominous sounds of Macie Stewart’s voice could already be heard emanating from the large, old barn located just on the other side of the red brick structure.
For a group of young adults that achieved so much, the end of the band was almost jarringly abrupt. After a series of tense discussions and numerous arguments, Kids These Days rode out their tour through New York and called it quits. Horn players Nico Segal and J.P. Floyd left from there to join Frank Ocean on tour, Vic Mensa immediately embarked on a solo hip-hop career and the rest headed back to Chicago to figure everything out.
Lili K & The O'My's: "Baby It's Cold Outside"
Today listeners got a treat from two of the most soulful up and coming acts in the Chicago market. With a heavy helping of Christmas spirit, Lili K & The O'My's linked up to produce their own version of the timeless wintertime classic. The song, premiered today on Okayplayer, is a perfect crossroads for the 22-year-old songstress, Lili K, who released a Christmas-themed single last year with frequent collaborator Peter CottonTale and earlier this year dropped a project of her own eclectic takes on classic Jazz standards in My Favorite Things. The O'My's, who closed out their year with the release of their album, A Humble Masterpiece, are who you thought they were, setting the backdrop for a beautiful interplay between frontman Maceo Haymes and Lili K's voices. Check out the song below.
[iframe id="w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/125258210&color=ff4200&show_artwork=false" mode="normal" align="center"]
Sidewalk Chalk: "There She Goes"
Chicago-based eight-piece band Sidewalk Chalk has been honing their unique assembly of Jazz, Hip-hop and Soul around the Chicagoland area for a minute now, gaining listeners and fans with an eclectic sound that appeals to a wide swath of music enthusiasts. The group's latest track, "There She Goes" premiered today on Okayplayer and is the first single off their upcoming project, Leaves. Sidewalk Chalk has shared the stage or opened for the likes of ?uestlove, De La Soul, Action Bronson, Jean Grae and Hiatus Kaiyot, among others, proof that the music doesn't lie. Leaves, the group's follow-up to 2010's debut Corner Store, is due out on February 25. Check out "There She Goes" available below.
[iframe id="w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/124719443&color=ff6600&auto_play=false&show_artwork=true" mode="normal" align="center"]
[Video] Lucki Eck$: "Count On Me"
Chicago's own Lucki Eck$ made waves earlier this year with the release of his breakthrough debut project, Alternative Trap. The ambient trap-influenced airiness of the mixtape's overall aesthetic and beats matched Lucki's unique, off-beat, shadowy tone in his rhymes which acted as yet another interesting take on the genre from a Chicago artist. The tape has brought considerable attention to the somewhat mysterious artist, enough that his next project will be one of the most anticipated releases in awhile.
Today, we get the video for Lucki's track "Count On Me", produced by hytman and directed by JKrown, the visual details Lucki and co. wandering and bopping their way down the streets of Wicker Park. Surreal is a word often used to describe the young artist on the rise, a word that aptly describes the accompanying visual element to the track. Check out "Count On Me" below.
[youtube id="N3noGoxsLts" mode="normal" align="center"]
Early Chance The Rapper Tracks Discovered
Complex's Kyle Kramer is reporting a swath of mostly unheard Chance The Rapper material that was unearthed via Reddit late last night. The new (old) music is from Chance's high school days at Jones College Prep and after school sessions at YouMedia, the local poetry and spoken word program held at Harold Washington Library in Chicago's South Loop. The center was the breeding ground for much of the music coming out of the city today, including Kids These Days, Donnie Trumpet (Nico Segal), Vic Mensa, NoNameGypsy, Malcolm London, and plenty more. The tracks were recorded as part of Chano's group named Instrumentality and feature early cuts of many of the songs that fans know him by today, including a rough cut of "Nostalgia". Production for many of the tracks, available here below, is handled by close friend Nico Segal, who has been working behind the scenes with the likes of Frank Ocean and Hit Boy recently and should have be reaching listeners collective consciousnesses soon. The projects are titled Good Enough and Back to School Pack, and provide a sketching of the early days of Chano's career, which really weren't all that long ago. With the hometown kid on every publication, blog and website, take a trip back in time when things were a little more calm for Chancellor Bennett.