Weekend Playlist: And It Don't Stop (Chicago Hip-Hop, That Is)

By Jon Graef in Arts & Entertainment on Aug 18, 2013 3:30PM

Last week's weekend playlist covered the city's robust, but neglected rock scene. This weekend, we pay tribute to the Windy City's hip-hop cultural renaissance.

Hip-hop has played a vital, essential role to Chicago's history, especially since the start of the 21st century. No other genre evokes the complexity of the human condition so well as hip-hop.

Where else can the gritty determination of self-made poets and artists manifest itself in so many different ways?

That is, in both declarations of stark, cold nihilism, and steely, hard-won hopefulness; in boldly declared faith, and in skewering satire (even on the same track); and in lush electronics colliding with harpsichord horror shows.

Nowhere else but Chicago hip-hop, that's where.

These personal stories are told through Acid Rain storms, sessions of Sunday School (both of them), in tribute to bell hooks,in ways that make your head bob and your body bounce.

This playlist is flawed, though, in that it's limited to what's on Spotify. Dig deeper.

Newly emergent artists and like ShowYouSuck, Chance The Rapper, Roy Kinsley NoNameGypsy, and Tree are showing the myriad ways Chicago shines. It's debatable whether Chief Keef's glory boyz still have theirs, but there's no doubt they've left their mark on the city's cultural landscape.

Of course, we can't forget the cavalcade of conscious rappers from the city's mid-aught blossom, or the lady making hits for hittaz today.

Regardless of where Chicago goes from here -- and there are signs of flow to inevitably head off a once-large ebb -- the city's rappers and emcees will have something profound to show for their artistic efforts.

So bob your head.