Two of 2018’s biggest rap singles came out last year. “Mo Bamba,” a burbling, combustible anthem that Harlem rapper Sheck Wes made for his childhood friend, Orlando Magic center Mohamed Bamba, originally dropped in June 2017; earlier this month, the song reached number six on the Billboard Hot 100. “Lucid Dreams,” a corrosive heartbreak song that Chicagoland rapper Juice Wrld built on a tender guitar melody swiped from Sting’s “Shape of My Heart,” also debuted online in June 2017; in October it peaked at number two on the Hot 100.
The dominant narrative foisted on Chicago hip-hop—a subcultural battle between drill and a hard-to-pin down “alternative” community nurtured by poetry open mikes and usually exemplified by Chance the Rapper—doesn’t have any room for Juice Wrld. Of course, the actual output of the local rap scene in 2018 demolished this narrative at every turn, and thankfully it’s now being invoked mostly because of its inadequacy: a Pitchfork review of Chris Crack’s Being Woke Ain’t Fun, a RedEye profile of Cupcakke, and a New York Times story about Valee all positioned their subjects outside this spurious dichotomy.
In case it needs saying, I’m not trying to be comprehensive by choosing five releases. I hope this roundup encourages people to keep exploring and listening to Chicago rap they haven’t yet heard.
Morocco BrownManic
Morocco Brown came up in 2016 under the management of rapper Taylor Bennett, though they parted ways a year or so ago. In August, he self-released Manic, a focused debut EP built on effervescent synths and minimal percussion, which sometimes sounds like flurries of hand drumming and sometimes sounds like a trap beat submerged in the mix. Brown occasionally seems frazzled—most notably on the single “Mania,” originally released in late 2017—but even his most anxious outbursts feel tightly controlled. On the sweet, pop-forward track “Rubicon,” he stretches out the occasional syllable, almost as if he’s singing, and in those moments you can really hear his latent star quality.
