![]() ![]() While the mainstream music industry was questioning the legitimacy of the genre, drill was busy setting the precedent for hip-hop for the rest of the decade. Billboard didn’t begin to adapt its metrics until early 2013. Drill was one of the first music scenes to exist almost exclusively via videos and streaming physical CDs and iTunes downloads were irrelevant. Rather, the issue was Billboard’s methods of quantifying listening at the time. But, like Chicago rap critic David Drake points out in his essay for The Outline, drill’s popularity wasn’t fleeting. The music industry overreacted, declaring drill a fad. But, later in the year, when Keef released his debut album, Finally Rich, it sold only a disappointing 50,000 copies in its first week. Major labels invaded the city: Keef signed a $6 million deal with Interscope Lil Reese and Lil Durk, members of Keef’s GBE crew, inked deals with Def Jam and fellow Chicago rapper King Louie signed with Epic. That spring, Chief Keef released “I Don’t Like” and drill had its breakthrough moment. ![]() A teenage rapper, leading a burgeoning scene categorized as drill music-taken from the slang usage of “drill,” meaning to shoot someone-who was telling firsthand stories of the violent, gang-dominated Chicago culture that reflected a city with an ongoing history of segregation and neglect of the black community. These two videos were an introduction to the fandom behind Chief Keef. He was nothing more than a local sensation, unknown to just about anyone that didn’t attend a Chicago high school. He was stuck in his grandmother’s Southside Chicago apartment on house arrest for gun charges. At the time, Chief Keef was 16 years old, with a bubbling street single. “Chief Keef is outta prison!” he squeals. This clip featured a younger boy, profanely delirious like he’d just won the lottery. “Shut the fuck up!” Months before, another inescapable Keef-related video had been uploaded to WorldStarHipHop. “Fuckers in school always telling me, always in the barbershop, ‘Chief Keef ain’t ’bout this, Chief Keef ain’t ’bout that,’” he screamed. ![]() In the summer of 2012, as Chief Keef’s momentum was picking up steam, a Chicago teenager tearfully and angrily addressed the critiques of his favorite rapper in a viral video filmed from the passenger seat of a parked car. ![]()
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