When it comes to gangster rap,
most people think of East Coast versus West Coast.
But there’s a lot more to hardcore rap than Bloods and Crips.
Chicago has been responsible for much of the gang activity
and presence growing in the United States.
It’s also been putting out rapper after rapper that’s making it big in the industry,
so it shouldn’t be a shock that some of these rappers are going to be gangbangers too.
Ready to find out which Chicago rappers are affiliated?
Let’s take a look.
Lil Durk
Lil Durk is a true Chicago native, born and raised in the city.
Growing up, he never knew his father,
who was locked up on two life sentences from the time Durk was a baby.
Durk was raised mostly by his mother, but times were rough.
The rapper says that there were times that they didn’t even have enough to eat.
To escape life at home,
he started getting on Myspace and YouTube to share his music.
After seeing more and more fans come to him for tracks,
he decided to drop out of high school to make a career out of music.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t just the music industry that Lil Durk joined.
When he dropped out of school, he joined the parenting world as he became a father at 17.
He also joined the Black Disciples gang right in the middle of Chicago’s famed gang wars.
The Black Disciples have more than three hundred sets,
with a total membership of around twelve thousand.
They’re best known for murdering one of their own members,
an 11-year-old boy who accidentally shot a pedestrian
when he was sent out to kill rival gang members.
Despite a couple of gun charges,
Lil Durk is still a member of the gang
and still gets into feuds with rival members and rappers.
Twista
Carl Terrell Mitchell, better known as Twista,
was one of the stars in the golden era of hip hop.
In 1992, he proved his talent and received the Guinness World Record
for the title of Fastest Rapper in the World,
spitting 598 syllables in 55 seconds.
Twista grew up on the West side of Chicago,
a part of the city that is mostly working-class and low-income.
The area is overrun by street gangs like the Latin Kings, Mickey Cobras, and the New Breeds.
Living in a hood surrounded by gangs
had Twista thinking that joining up was the best way to survive,
so he affiliated with the Almighty Vice Lord Nation,
a gang known not only for street violence but also for their sophisticated crimes
involving credit card fraud, mortgage fraud, and money laundering.
Twista said in a 2014 interview that he is scared to live in Chicago
and hates seeing “gangbangers who are able to kill each other,”
so there is some speculation as to whether the rapper is still involved with the gang
or if he left that life behind.
Lil Reese
27-year-old Lil Reese
is known for his collaborations with other artists in the drill scene.
A feature on Chief Keef’s single “I Don’t Like” in 2012
grabbed the rapper a shared spot at #15 on the Billboard Hot Rap Songs
and 73 on the Billboard Hot 100.
He’s now got seven mixtapes under his belt, with the latest one, GetBackGang 2,
released in 2019.
Like other Chicago-based rappers,
Lil Reese fell into the gang trap and linked up with the Black Disciples as a teen.
His affiliation came to a head in 2012
when 18-year-old rapper Lil JoJo was killed in a drive-by shooting.
He was a member of the rival Gangster Disciples and had beef with Chief Keef,
Lil Durk, and Lil Reese, putting out tracks that dissed the Black Disciples.
After JoJo’s death, a friend of his remixed one of his songs
and included the phrase “Lil Reese gonna die tonight,”
but no retaliation has been taken yet.
Reese has been pretty open about his experience with gangs and street life.
He was tired of seeing other rappers talk a big game in their tracks
and then go home to their comfortable suburban home.
Instead, he talks about “turning into a savage”
what happens to people when they’re forced to live in horrible conditions
and the mentality they need to have to survive.
G Herbo
25-year-old Herbert Wright
came onto the scene in 2014 with the release of his first mixtape
Welcome to Fazoland.
Once he signed to Machine Entertainment Group,
he released his first studio album,
Humble Beast.
Still, it wasn’t until he signed with Epic Records
and released Swervo in 2018 that he really started seeing some serious attention.
Growing up in Chicago was rough for Herbo,
and he dropped out of high school at 16.
He started pursuing music, along with friend and rapper Lil Bibby.
Their first song released on Youtube from 2012 now has 42 million views,
and Drake even called the pair “the future” of hip hop.
Despite all of this fame and attention, Herbo still has some ties he picked up in Chicago.
Along with Lil Bibby, Herb is connected to a “brotherhood” called NLMB.
Initially, the group was formed by rogue sets from the Almighty Black P. Stone Nation
and the Gangster Disciples gangs.
It stands for the names of those renegade factions,
No Limit/Muskegon Boys.
Because the group isn’t really seen as a real gang,
we’re not sure what his membership means,
but the rapper has definitely referenced it in his songs:
“Yeah it’s no limit, thirty years runnin’,
thirty years gunnin”
refers to the No Limit faction and the fact that NLMB was set up thirty years before.
Polo G
Known for his mastery of the Chicago drill scene
and his transition to a more melody-driven sound,
Polo G is a 21-year-old rapper from the Old Town neighborhood of Chicago.
The neighborhood is a historical area of the city and was a center for hippie culture in the sixties.
Soon after though, street gangs began creeping in,
especially the Young Lords.
Growing up as Taurus Bartlett,
Polo G had a mostly normal childhood,
but once he got to his teenage years, he started getting involved with gangs.
At one point, he was arrested 6 times in a short time period.
Car theft and drug possession were the primary charges.
Even when a close friend was shot to death at 15, Polo stuck with his street activity.
Meanwhile, he was using money earned from drug sales to pay for studio time,
and when he was seventeen, he was pursuing music full-time.
By 2018, he was catching millions of plays online on his self-released tracks and videos.
People have speculated about Polo G’s official gang affiliation for a while,
but it wasn’t until October 2, 2020,
that he came out with a strong enough hint for fans.
He tweeted, “But anyway Gdk.”
In gang-speak, GDK stands for “gangster disciple killer.”
It’s most often used by members of the Black Disciples gang,
so it sounds like he is really coming out to say he’s affiliated for real.
King Louie
A couple days before Christmas of 2015,
rapper King Louie was shot in the head while sitting in his car stopped at an intersection.
Luckily, Louie was only grazed by the bullet
and was taken to the hospital in stable condition.
This act was the culmination of some severe gang rivalry.
Louis Johnson grew up in Chicago,
so he was no stranger to this type of gun violence that he found himself in the middle of.
Living on the Eastside of Chicago in the 90s,
Louis experienced a lifestyle on par with the Chicago average,
but crime rates were higher in this neighborhood.
Gangster Disciples, Four Corner Hustlers, and the Almighty Black P. Stone Nation
are the most powerful gangs in the area.
According to authorities, King Louis is an affiliated member of the Dro City gang,
a faction of the Gangster Disciples.
The faction keeps mostly to themselves
and doesn’t get into a lot of beef with other gangs.
And apparently, Louie is a pretty powerful member of the group, too;
the assassination attempt kicked off massive tensions
between the Gangster Disciples and the Glo Gang,
the rival faction believed to be responsible for the attempt.
Since the shooting, King Louis has recovered
and has continued to put out a couple more albums but has been mostly unseen for the past 4 years.
Well, that’s all for today!
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