Lena: Music is such a huge part of being a part of Chicago.
You can't walk down a street and not hear somebody blasting The Isley Brothers in a
Big-Body Buick or some young kid swinging by on a Honda or Acura or a Chrysler 300 listening
to Chief Keef or listening to vintage Twista or somebody's listening to R. Kelly, or you
walking by somebody's house and you hear Donny Hathaway pumping out of the window.
Everybody's always listening to music.
Common: I think it's very important as a producer to let the truth, let the truth be out.
'The Chi' brings a unique take on it because we're telling the stories of people who haven't
had a chance to tell their stories and I want the truest moments because to me that’s
what we’ll all relate to.
Lena: For me, I just wanted to show humanity, and sometimes humanity is violent.
Sometimes it's ugly.
But it's also beautiful and redeeming.
I think that's the biggest thing, is that black people particularly are not really seen
as human beings, and I think the reason why is because all you see are just black guys
shooting or black women being sexualized, then what are you supposed to think of us?
For me, it was important to write this pilot particularly to set the tone and say, "We
are humans.”
Now that doesn't mean we're always angels, but we're not all devils all the time either.
We're somewhere in the middle.
And I think that's what we really want to accomplish with the series.
Common: This show is doing it with all its heart and soul.
Really trying to express what people on the South Side feel like.
What they talk like.
What we act like.
What we laugh like.
The food we eat.
The way we joke.
Which corner stores we go to... when I write songs about Chicago, I want people to feel
that and I know our show is giving that to the people.
G Herbo: I feel like my style of music just growing up in Chicago is unique because...
what I've been through, how I grew up, the areas I grew up in, the schools I went to,
the clothes I used to wear, the music I used to listen to.
All that played a part in my music right now.
It's just the way I tell stories.
Common: The dope thing about our city is you can have anybody from Kanye to Lupe to Chief
Keef to Lil Bibby or G Herbo, so it's a variety of people.
G Herbo: It probably wouldn't have been no us without them.
Without no Common's and Twista's and Do or Die's and Johnny P's.
I feel like there wouldn't have been no Herb's or Sosa's and Durk's.
That was really ... they set not only a path for us to get into the industry, just a style
of music, a style of swag.
Lena: We can't do this show and have wack music.
That was a big note I was always giving in playback.
I was like, "No, swap that out.
That's wack.
That don't sound right."
Even Showtime execs will tell you I gave them a hard time about it.
I was on Common and Derek and his team to say, "Call so-and-so.
Who do you know?
Let's figure this out," because music is a character on the show.
It sets a tone for the series, and also even what a character's listening to says a lot
about who they are.
For me, it was just really important to get that right.
We couldn't be ‘The Chi’ and have a bad soundtrack.
G Herbo: Chicago is a unique place from Al Capone's to Jeff Fort, it's a legendary place.
Chicago, if you live life a certain way or just think a certain way, you could survive
anywhere.
I don't know, it breeds tough strong people.
That's what it means to me.
Common: I believe in our team, that they're going to deliver everything we need to make
the show not only really incredible but also be as authentic as possible to Chicago.
That's why we were sitting around building with people from Chicago.
The producers, we made sure that we had people around that were from the city and even obviously
some of the actors.
Just being able to have Chicago actors.
Lena: We are like everyone else.
We're human and we have good days and we have bad days, and the city is complex.
It's not perfect.
But it's a city filled with love, families, and just regular folks trying to make it day to day