When it comes to hip-hop, Chicago gets no respect. The speedy run-on vocal style that Cleveland’s Bone Thugs-n-Harmony rode to platinum in 1994 was invented at least three years earlier by Twista and Do or Die, Chicago acts who hover below the mainstream radar even today. Despite his underground rep, Common’s career didn’t blossom until he moved to Brooklyn. And the most humiliating development of all came with the success of Nelly’s Country Grammar in 2000, when Saint Louis, not Chicago, became the city to put midwestern hip-hop on the map.
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Those singles are only the most prominent examples of Chicago hip-hop’s burgeoning profile. Producers like Kanye West, No I.D., and Xtreme have spent years crafting tracks for underground artists; now they’re quietly landing major production and recording deals. Shawnna, the daughter of Buddy Guy and former member of the female duo Infamous Syndicate, toured with Ludacris and appeared on the album Golden Grain as part of his group Disturbing tha Peace; she’ll release her major-label solo debut in the spring. New faces are appearing–a teen prodigy named Lil Wish was named Entertainer of the Year by Truth magazine without a song on the radio or in stores–and south-side crews like Soldiers at War have mobilized grassroots PR teams to push their CDs on street corners.
In the past even hometown acts with major-label support, like Do or Die and Common, found local airplay hard to come by. But when Philadelphia-owned Crawford Broadcasting ditched WPWX’s gospel format two years ago to create Power 92, the scene changed. The new station gave indie acts Malik Yusef, Felony, Bigg Nastee, and White Chalk spins in prime time, and audience response was so positive competitors were forced to pick up the songs too. “We had to put the best of local artists on for us to achieve our goals and be the best,” says Jay Alan, Power 92’s programming director. Translation: with mainstream hip-hop and R & B listeners catered to by B96, stations had to discover new ways to distinguish themselves from the competition.
But if these are heady times for local artists, so were the mid-90s, when artists such as Common, Do or Die, Crucial Conflict, Twista, Cap 1, and Psychodrama were snatched up by major labels. None of those Chicago acts reaped the rewards of hip-hop’s commercial explosion, and many of their careers were marred or nearly destroyed by legal drama and business naivete. Common was forced to change his name from Common Sense after a little-known ska band of the same name sued him. Twista’s career was bogged down by a three-year legal battle to leave locally based CWAL records and renegotiate his solo deal with Atlantic. (Though still signed to that major, Twista also runs his own indie label, Legit Ballin, which is currently in negotiation with Roc-a-Fella.) “The dopest lyricist can only go so far,” says Rawl “Raw” Stewart, Twista’s road manager. “You need a business team that’s going to do your work and take it to the next level. Most of these artists didn’t have that.”
Despite high hopes, then, some members of the local hip-hop community are apprehensive, knowing that the fates of its members are linked. Just as one artist’s success can draw national recognition for others, so one artist’s mistakes can sabotage everyone. “One bad deal messes it up for all of us,” says Greco. “You don’t want major labels feeling they can come to Chicago and give us crazy deals because we don’t know any better. It sets a bad precedent.”
