As the blogging powerhouse behing Fake Shore Drive, Andrew Barber is the go to for all things hip-hop in the Windy City. He calls out the best moments in Chicago hip-hop this year.
1.) R. Kelly is acquitted
Not exactly a hip-hop moment, per se, but damn sure close enough. Everyone and their Mother’ s Mother knew that Kells was guilty, and even your Mother’ s mother’ s mother knew he was going to get off. I wouldn’ t say it was really a surprise, but it’ s still. Plus it gets double points for being the longest, most drawn out trial ever. Seriously.
2.) Bump J arrested on bank robbery charges
Poised for a massive comeback in ‘ 09, Bump hit a major bump (pun NOT intended) when he was arrested in Carbondale, IL for an outstanding warrant stemming from bank robbery charges in ‘ 07. This story was possibly the most shocking of the year, as it absolutely came out of leftfield. Let’ s hope this matter gets sorted out soon so Bump can get back to making music.
3.) Lil Wayne cites Mikkey Halsted as his rhyming inspiration
Having arguably the biggest rapper in the game, Lil Wayne, shouting you out as their inspiration and teacher in XXL Magazine is nothing to sneeze at. And that’ s exactly what happened in the Oct ‘08 issue. Here’ s to hoping Mikk gets that proper push he deserves in ‘ 09, so he can catch up to his apprentice.
4.) Legendary Chicago producers and MCs reunite (Common and No ID, The Legendary Traxster and Twista)
No ID and The Legendary Traxster are two producers who are widely known as the Godfathers of Chicago Hip-Hop. Both producers are credited with shaping the sound of Common and Twista’ s benchmark albums, Resurrection and Adrenaline Rush, respectively. It’ s been many years since these producers and artists teamed up for greatness, and late in ‘ 08 both parties announced a reunion tour of sorts. Trax and Twist are already hard at work on Twista’ s The Mitchell Report and Common and No ID (with Kanye in tow) are set to begin work on The Believer in the coming months.
5.) No ID and Traxster connect after well over a decade to form label and website
Speaking of the two aforementioned producers, in 2008 Traxster and No ID let bygones be bygones and paired up to create the hip-hop online barber shop, NoIDvsTraxster.com, where hip-hop junkies could go to discuss everything from production to politics to their favorite conspiracy theories. They also announced plans to create a label, but details are scarce in that department at this time.
6.) Yung Berg vs. The World
It seemed like Berg couldn’ t keep his name out of the Hip-Hop tabloids in ‘ 08. Whether he was beefing with L.E.P. or Maino, calling Ne-Yo a Ninja Turtle, being relieved of his Transformers chain by Trick Trick and his band of Detroit Goons, or claiming he wasn’ t into ‘dark butts’, Berg’ s name rang out constantly. But you know what they say: any publicity is good publicity, and he doesn’ t seem to be disappearing form the public eye anytime soon.
7.) Kanye West releases an ‘all singing’ album
This one really needs no introduction. Kanye premiered ‘Love Lockdown’ at the MTV 2008 VMAs, but no one expected him to drop a full length LP including nothing but auto-tune crooning. But if it’ s Kanye, you can only expect the unexpected. But for those who missed ‘Ye spitting those regular bars, he still kicked actual non-vocoder rap verses on GLC’ s ‘Big Screen’, Really Doe’ s ‘Plastic’ and 88 Keys’ ‘Stay Up (Viagra)’
8.) ‘New Chicago’ T-shirt debacle
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