At only 20 years of age, G Herbo, FKA Lil Herb has already established himself as an integral part of Chicago’s Drill scene. A scene which has come to underscore the unmitigated violence on the Windy City’s south side.
While his image may belie a life of criminal activity, the drug-dealer-turned-rapper has his sights set on building up the neighborhood that raised him into a community where children don’t have to grow up in the tumultuous circumstances that he did. Herb, like his childhood best friend Lil Bibby, has been buzzing pretty heavily since 2012’s Welcome to Fazoland mixtape, and recently inked a deal with his company 150 Dream Team to join Johnny Shipes’ imprint Cinematic Music Group.
Recently, Herbo was in Los Angeles opening up for Joey Bada$$ (the two also teamed up on the Metro Boomin’ produced single “Lord Knows” which dropped last week) as part of Red Bull Sound Select’s 30 Days in LA and HipHopDX caught up with him to talk about everything from Slim Jesus to his new deal, and how he feels about the new Spike Lee film Chiraq.
On signing with Johnny Shipes and CMG
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUlFpy04ksA
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HipHopDX: What led you to work with Cinematic Music Group?
G Herbo: What made me lean toward Cinematic [was] really just to put myself in a better position to win as far as me. I don’t really plan on just being an artist. I look at myself as a business and a brand and I wanna control my brand and really just put the right team and put the right shit together within my team as far as management. I’m already signed to a production [deal] so if I can really win within my team and be comfortable. I won’t have to go to a major or nothin’ like that you feel me?
DX: What’s going on with your company: 150 Dream Team?
G Herbo: As far as building my company, 150 Dream Team, my brand and signing my artists, my tour company, publishing company, merch and all that type of shit, I’m learning the business end. I’m comfortable with my team fully. Shipes and I got a good relationship. We’ve been vibin’ and working and getting a lotta shit done, and since I have been working with Shipes it’s been like a big burden off me. I can focus on being an artist.
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Hoop Dreams & a Childhood Friendship With Lil Bibby
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hFPS5IxycHc
DX: What’s your relationship like with Lil Bibby?
G Herbo: I’ve been knowing Bibby since we were like 11 or 12 so that’s my homie, homie. It really just came about. We were just playing basketball. Bibby got that name from our dead homie, Fazon. Bibby used to be raw as hell at hooping. That’s when we played basketball and he used to be a little curly head with the fuckin’ headband on. He looked like [Mike Bibby], so that’s how he got the name in the first place, hooping’ and shit. My parents were always strict, but I always had the freedom to do what I wanted to do. I was the middle [child] but I always was ahead of my age and knew a lot and my momma and them knew that so they tried to make sure I was out of trouble as much as possible. Bibby’s house was the first house where I ever spent the night outside of a family member. His momma had to meet my momma and grandma and talk to them at my house. That’s my real brother.
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DX: How’d you guys meet?
G Herbo: When we first met – I actually was hanging with his brother first. I was hanging with Bibby’s older brother George and then all of us just got close. Me, Bibby and his other brothers. That’s just my homies. We’re from the same area and we were cool and then we started rapping. He started rapping first. He came outta nowhere, and we were like, “What the fuck?” And I always knew how to rap cause I had music in me. My uncle who passed away was K Tone. I looked up to him growing up. He was an artist, songwriter, producer and shit like that so I always had an ear for music and knew how to rhyme and put words together. I never took it seriously ’cause I was playing basketball. I never cared about rapping. I always thought you can’t be a rapper unless you’re rich. I thought you gotta be like Diddy. Like, you just come out a rich rapper. I didn’t know how that shit went so I wasn’t paying attention then, and when Bibby made his first track, we just recorded it on the phone, 60-second recordings. So the first rap I made was over that Cassidy “Aim for the Head” beat, with him and Swizz Beatz. I did that, recorded it on the phone and sent it out to all my homies. It was history. Me and Bibby got in a recording studio months later on 79th and Luella, a couple blocks away from our hood, and recorded like three songs in one day and it’s been history ever since. We never were a group, we were always solo artists. We was just homies, you know what I’m saying? We got the same homies and we’re gonna bring wealth back to the same area.
Slim Jesus: The Gift And The Curse
DX: About Slim Jesus, he’s been getting a lot of attention. Is it justified?
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G Herbo: It is like mockery almost, but I don’t knock him ’cause, shit, if it wasn’t for him I probably wouldn’t be who I am now. Like, those types of kids, those little white kids sitting in their fuckin’ house idolizing what we do and wanting to be a part of it cause we really live that shit. The shit that we’ve been through, I don’t look at like it’s a trophy like, “Oh yeah I’m from the hood and I done been through all the street shit. No, that just made me who I am and the situations I’ve been through in my life made me who I am now.
When I met him it was really cause my homie. He like fuckin’ with people so he [was] like, “Slim Jesus out here. Let’s go fuck with him. Let’s get up with him.” We was in Cincinnati, we went to go watch the Adrien Broner fight and we met, I think Slim Jesus was at our hotel after. We were staying at a hotel he was at. He’s just a regular little white kid. I could tell like he doesn’t even try to be tough or none of that. His music is his music. He talks about what he talk about, but he don’t get around you and try to gang bang and talk tough, none of that. He was just a regular person you feel me? I respect people who be they self and he still being himself cause in the interview when they asked him he was like, ‘No, I don’t do that. I just fuck with the music. That’s what I like rapping about.’ So he still being his self at the end of the day. I respect people who are themselves. I’m not saying I respect him on a street level. But just for being himself, though, like even when I’m around him. [It’s] not like he’s my homie or we be around each other but when I was around him he was just regular like a normal kid.
On The Forthcoming Chiraq Film
DX: Spike Lee’s Chiraq is supposed to comment on Chicago’s violence problem. Did you see the trailer? How do you feel about it?
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G Herbo: I don’t even feed into that type of shit you feel me like, I feel like anything that’s not beneficial to me does not matter. I’m on to the next. I’m not finna feel a certain type of way about it or nothin’ cause at the end of the day I’m focused on one goal and that’s for me to win. For me to be a career artist. None of my success that I’ve accomplished right now means anything to me. I’m just humbled by it, and I wanna be better. I don’t try to pinpoint my career [success]. I just wanna get better so really, with the whole Chiraq shit, I never really fed into it because I don’t know if the movie and the concept are speaking on what we’ve been through and try to change it or is it just to highlight some bullshit. If it ain’t about helping Chicago, putting money into Chicago kids and the youth and to be better, know better and do better then I’m not really trying to feed into it ’cause that’s really the problem in Chicago. The youth, like, 8-year-old kids getting shot and shit. That’s not what’s up you feel me? That shit is fucked up. I grew up, my aunties always had me in basketball programs. My momma used to fly me to Iowa just so I could play AAU…
You go through what you go through. You are who you are, but with kids they should have a better future. They shouldn’t have to jump off the porch at ten years old and gotta [go] gang bang and sell drugs. That ain’t what’s up, and if that ain’t really about what you speaking on, what’s going on and how bad it is, and you’re not trying to better the situation or help the kids, that’s a problem. I respect Spike Lee, but I don’t know the Chiraq concept. If it ain’t about bettering Chicago, my city, then I really don’t want no part of it. If you put a camera in my face and ask me what I’ve been through I won’t wanna speak on that because I’ve been through some serious shit. People done died behind what I’ve been through. People done went to jail behind what I been through. It’s not nothing to talk about or write an article on if you’re not talking about bettering the situation or helping. [If you’re not], then don’t come ask me nothin’. It’s not entertainment for the rest of the world. These kids out here are killing each other, gang banging playing with guns, hell no I don’t respect that.
