Despite rocketing into the spotlight last year as the production-side figurehead for Chicago’s rapidly mutating drill scene (aided largely by his doom-saturated productions on Chief Keef’s now-legendary Back From The Dead mixtape), Young Chop has remained focused on developing a distinct sound, recruiting for his full-length joints a handpicked team of Chi-based rap-singers to round out his shimmering, ultra-melodic compositions.
This style was showcased well on last month’s Death Row mixtape, the sophomore release from blood brother and artistic ‘migo Johnny May Cash — February sees yet another solid tape from Chop and his squad, YB’s Life Of A Boss. YB’s flow, like Cash’s, takes stylistic cues from local melodic rap pioneer Lil Durk, and it would seem that Chop has switched out his old digital apocalypse sound for a more delicate brand of twinkling, auto-tuned origami.
Highlights include the weirdly poignant “All I See Is Green,” which features the aforementioned Cash as well as a gleeful verse from former Keef collaborator and recent MMG signee Fat Trel, as well as “No More (Feat. Lil Dave),” a melodic re-tooling of the Chicago blues updated thematically and stylistically for this year 2014. Peep the vid above, and download Life Of A Boss at LiveMixtapes.
• Young Chop: https://soundcloud.com/youngchopbeatz
• YB: http://indy.livemixtapes.com/mixtapes/26148/yb-life-of-a-boss.html