Since emcees like Kanye West and Common began to dominate the charts, Chicago’s Hip Hop scene has been thrust under the microscope of the media. Yet despite the city’s musical popularity, rarely do fans get to experience the full breadth of the city’s musical and personal spectrum. Now, however, Kidz In The Hall lyricist Naledge is set to bring Chicago in all it’s glory to the forefront of the Hip Hop game with his latest solo project Chicago Picasso.
“[Chicago Picasso] kind of goes back to me starting out as a solo artist and wanting to make a certain type of project that was reflective of me as an individual,” Naledge told HipHopDX. “[This is] stuff that’s outside of the Double-O [click to read] production and stuff that doesn’t necessarily fit to the scheme of where we’re always trying to take Kidz In The Hall, so it doesn’t always fit. Some of the things I want to do individually aren’t congruent with that. [Doing the project] just was perfect time, with me moving back to Chicago and staring to work with artists [and producers] locally, it felt like the timing was right. [Kidz In The Hall] had a gap in between albums, and we went on the road, so I just said, ‘Yo, let’s put this project together.’”
With Chicago Picasso set for a June 30 release on Duck Down Records, Naledge explains how the mixtape evolved from a pet project to a label-backed album. He also discusses his beliefs on the importance of mixtapes in the industry and what they implicate for the longevity of an artist.
“[Chicago Picasso] is something that I was kind of doing myself,” said Naledge. “It wasn’t something that [initially] had label backing. It was therapeutic for me. I just had all this music and I wanted people to hear it. It wasn’t necessarily like, ‘Oh, let’s put out an album and make it be a solo album and put it out on Duck Down [Records].’ I had no plans to do any of that. I just wanted to make a mixtape and release this music that I was making because I felt like it was dope…The [music] was so dope, everybody that was hearing was like, ‘Yo, you can’t just give this away for free,’ including the people at Duck Down. It turned into something bigger than I could have expected and I’m hoping that it grows even larger with the release of the project.“
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He then added, “I don’t take the word ‘artist’ lightly. This is an art form to me. This is something [at which] I work, [at which] I practice. It’s not something that I do that’s a trend. This is what I do, and I’m trying to perfect my craft and that’s just the way I feel. This project is a statement. To me, I get upset when people talk about the best emcees in Chicago. I get upset when people talk about the best emcees period, and I don’t get mentioned. The only thing to do about that is to keep being consistent and giving people dope shit and making people realize why you are dope. This project is just another exercise in letting people know why I am dope, or doper than them, and [why] I am the voice…of Chicago.”
Unlike his work with producer Double-O for Kidz In The Hall, Chicago Picasso finds Naledge working with different producers, including Tha Bizness [click to read], Analogic and a host of local Chicago beat-smiths. He explains the difference in approaching this sort of project as opposed to his previous work with Kidz In The Hall, indicating that the project finds him building upon his previous experiences.
“The major difference between [working with Double-O and working on Chicago Picasso] is that Double-O is just right there when I’m making music. We live in two different cities now, so even in the process of making this new Kidz In The Hall record, we’ve been in two different cities and on iChat and in two different studios, sending files back and forth and back forth, which is a different experience. [With] The In-Crowd [click to read], I was in New York for the majority of the period while we made that album, and with School Was My Hustle, we were in L.A.. Everything is different [with Chicago Picasso].”
He later added, “My standpoint is like when you go away to college… [and] when you return to your hometown, yeah, you’ve taken these experiences from where you went, but you also start being reminded of where you came from because you’re surrounded by people who have been around your entire life. Some of them have evolved the way you’ve evolved, and some of them have devolved. All of that is stuff that you witness and that you look at…the difference is that I’m taking it back to the basics, back to where it started. At the end of the day, I have a little bit more of a hood rep, [and] that’s kind of what gets exposed on Chicago Picasso. I have an affinity for all things Chicago…and there’s a certain element {on this project] that a lot of people don’t realize I appreciate.”
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One of the most instantly recognizable features of Chicago Picasso is the variety of styles of Hip Hop with which Naledge experiments. He finds that maintaining a diverse musical perspective allows him to not only grow as an artist, but also to maintain a heightened level of fun and adventure while recording.
“I feel like most artists sit at one table; I sit at all tables,” noted the Chicago emcee. “Most people in Chicago have a scene, and that’s what they do. Me, I go in everybody’s scene. I’m reflective of Chicago as a whole, because I inter act with house kids, I interact with electro kids, I interact with hood kids…I have no problem partying anywhere. At the end of the day, if there’s a lunchroom, I can sit at any table…it’s an album that’s no different from the way that I would rap on a Kidz In The Hall record, it’s just that I experimented with different sounds and different beats. I don’t think most artists do that; most artists just stay in one lane because they feel like that’s their formula. Me, I just bounce around because I have more fun. To me, it’s more exciting to do that, to kind of not be linear all the time.”
As evidenced by the title, the heart of the project is Naledge’s hometown of Chicago. He says the mix CD affords an outsider the chance to experience the mentality and the spirit of the Windy City in all its different emotional states.
“It goes back to The In-Crowd and the statement we made with that album. It’s kind of a similar statement being made with Chicago Picasso. It’s me painting my picture of Chicago, but it’s my presentation. It’s basically me presenting my interpretation of Chicago, but this is a soundtrack to Chicago…if you bump this album when you come [to Chicago], it will make sense. If you close your eyes and listen to this record, you feel like you’re on a plane to Chicago, you land, and this is your trip, from the ups, the down and the in-betweens.”
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He added, ”Any emotional feeling you can have on the spectrum of life is on this album. You’re happy, you’re sad, you’re with your girl [and] falling in love with your girl, you just broke up with your girl, you’re at the strip club…you just lost a loved one…wherever you’re at in life…this is the soundtrack of the vibe that the perspective of a Chicagoan is giving. It still has a very ‘every-man’s’ feel to it. It’s not like exclusionary, I’m just going out of my way to be unapologetically my city. I’m going out of my way to do that because…we’ve heard where other people rap about where they’re from locally and turn that into a global brand. Like, everybody talks about [Long Beach, California] as if it’s some huge city, when [in reality], it’s…the suburb of a city. Everybody talks about Queensbridge like it’s the holy grail, and you go there, and it’s like, yeah, theses places are unique, but they’re no more unique than the place that I come from, so this is just my statement in saying that I represent Chicago.”
