The Chicago gang violence that has plagued the city over the last year as it pertains to the underground hip-hop scene has gone unnoticed in the media – until now.
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In an essay written by Hyper Vocals’ Jordan Pedersen, he chronicles the violence in Chicago, along with the young rapper upstarts who provide a violent musical backdrop for the killings, including Chief Keef, Lil Reese, and Lil Durk.
Pedersen wonders why the labels that signed these young gangsters have failed to report on the violent music they provide. He writes:
In a year in which Chicago has seen its streets practically run with blood, in the year of Trayvon Martin, in 2012, this is where we are. We have reached a point where Chicago’s predominantly white hip-hop press has essentially become a promotional arm of the Chicago Drill scene, a loose generic term applied to the kind of southern “trap” style music created by Durk, Reese, Keef, and their ascendant in-house producer Young Chop.
But when the physical evidence of the consequences of this scene’s violent rhetoric begins to mount, these same outlets remain silent. Well, actually, they remain as vocal as ever. But for all their effusive coverage of new releases by these artists — searching “Durk,” “Reese,” or “Keef” on Fake Shore Drive reveals that the site posts a story about every scrap of material released by Glory Boyz Entertainment and Only the Family (OTF) — they can’t be bothered to provide the context for the music they’re covering.
Why so silent? Maybe it’s because we hip-hop fans like to have our cake and eat it too: We nod our heads to the genre’s salacious gun talk, being careful not to nod them in the direction of the victims of said gun talk.
Pedersen paints a bleak portrait of how many labels and magazines have promoted these young gangster upstarts, while at the same time ignoring the blood running on the Chicago streets.
For more of Pedersen’s essay, click over to Hyper Vocal.
