Chicago hip-hop is closing out its biggest decade on the international stage with some remarkable releases and dramatic moves on the charts. Yet the mainstream press has rarely reflected the reality on the ground here, instead focusing on obviously popular figures such as Chance the Rapper and Kanye West (both of whom dropped albums this year that I’ve mostly forgotten). And though the media finally caught up with Juice Wrld as soon as his second album, Death Race for Love, debuted atop the Billboard 200, I saw far more coverage of his unexpected death earlier this month (and of the still-emerging details surrounding his run-in with the feds in the last moments of his life) than of his music.
Add-2
Jim Crow: The Musical
Veteran rapper Add-2, who also mentors at-risk youth via programs at his Haven Studios, unpacks the complexities of Black life and Black art as well as the deep historical roots of structural racism atop white-knuckle beats and sumptuous soul melodies.
Honorable mentions
Escher, Escher
Illuminati Congo, Time Killaz
