Chief Keef: Chicago’s Most Promising Anti-Hero

The culture of violence that’s seized Chicago existed decades before Cozart was born, but some of his critics appear to believe that his music somehow is to blame for the rising homicide rates. Instead, violence plagued a generation of young people who then pushed the rapper into national prominence because he accurately channeled their experiences. Influential rappers including Rhymefest have opined that the work Keef and other drill rappers create is “the theme music to murder,” but that violence would exist regardless of whatever song is playing in the background.

The fact that so many people are enraged with Cozart is actually a testament to his strengths as a rapper, according to hip-hop journalist David Drake, who says Cozart has reshaped his reality into a carefully crafted persona. “It is a performance,” says Drake, who wrote the in-depth Gawker profile that introduced the world to Cozart. “He’s just doing a more convincing job than anyone else.”

The sensational parts of the Chief Keef narrative—getting arrested on gun charges, living under house arrest at his grandmother’s place, wearing a court-ordered ankle bracelet to performances—are very much real, though, and his popularity has become a jumping-off point for national discussions about violence in Chicago, forcing more people to seriously look at the issue. “Keef has done more to publicize the fact that Chicago has a crime problem than the crime problem has publicized Keef,” Drake says.

Last month Gawker’s Cord Jefferson asked why Chicago’s deadly summer had largely been ignored by the country. Now the national media has found a hook—and a face—for its coverage of Chicago violence. And as Cozart has exposed the bleakest parts of our city, he’s lifted himself out of obscurity. His ascent has been stuck in hyperdrive, and as a result, more eyes have fallen on Chicago’s rap community—eager to find the next big thing.

Johnson describes Cozart as more of an attraction “than Lupe, Twista, and Kanye combined.”

“Never before has one artist brought so much attention to one scene,” he says.

Perhaps Cozart isn’t the poster boy most people would choose to represent Chicago’s hip-hop scene, but he’s what we’ve got—and for more reasons than one might expect, that’s not a bad thing.

Correction: This article has been amended to reflect Cozart’s age at the time he released the video “Chief Keef Tweaking Off Soulja Boy Gold Bricks *SONG*.”

Article Appeared @http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/chief-keef-might-be-a-solution-to-chicago-violence/Content?oid=7521203

Also Appeared @http://blackubiquity.com/sports-a-entertainment/item/10219-chief-keef-chicagos-most-promising-antihero

 

 

 

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