Chief Keef
4NEM
Album · Hip-Hop/Rap · 2021 · RBC Records
Chief Keef’s evolution from major-label bet to self-propelled outsider has been one of the more satisfying arcs in modern rap. The guy just doesn’t seem to care about what’s going on around him—a quality that speaks not only to his integrity, but the strength of his passions: He’s not gonna do anything he doesn’t wanna do. 4NEM isn’t as bubblegummy or down-the-middle as Thot Breaker, nor is it as weird as Almighty So or Back From the Dead 2. (Little is.) Instead, think of it like a love letter to trap in the time of Waka Flocka Flame and Lex Luger: booming, macho, intoxicatingly antisocial. But for all the bits of hypothetical wrestling walk-on music (“Tuxedo,” the DJ Paul-produced “Hadouken”), you get oddballs like “On What” and “Bitch Where,” which twist classic trap into unusual new shapes. He’s on his own planet. Visit him.
4NEM
Chief Keef
Chief Keef’s evolution from major-label bet to self-propelled outsider has been one of the more satisfying arcs in modern rap. The guy just doesn’t seem to care about what’s going on around him—a quality that speaks not only to his integrity, but the strength of his passions: He’s not gonna do anything he doesn’t wanna do. 4NEM isn’t as bubblegummy or down-the-middle as Thot Breaker, nor is it as weird as Almighty So or Back From the Dead 2. (Little is.) Instead, think of it like a love letter to trap in the time of Waka Flocka Flame and Lex Luger: booming, macho, intoxicatingly antisocial. But for all the bits of hypothetical wrestling walk-on music (“Tuxedo,” the DJ Paul-produced “Hadouken”), you get oddballs like “On What” and “Bitch Where,” which twist classic trap into unusual new shapes. He’s on his own planet. Visit him.
