Chief Keef is one of the most influential artists of this generation.
He’s not just a Chicago legend, but a certified hip hop icon
who’s responsible for creating the drill wave that’s still taking over the industry today.
But most fans don’t know about what was going down behind the scenes during his come up.
Today we’re laying out the true story behind the fallout between Keef
and his GBE co-founder SD.
Let’s get right into it.
We all know the story of Chief Keef and how he went from Chiraq savage
to worldwide superstar,
so let’s jump straight into where SD’s from.
He moved around all over Chicago when he was a kid.
At one point he lived in O’Block with his grandmother, but the main hood he repped
was a BD set called Black Gate.
His mom kicked him out of the house when he was 12,
so SD had to learn to survive on his own.
Growing up all alone in Chicago wasn’t easy.
SD was surrounded by crime and violence.
He once told an interviewer “Every day you wake up it’s like a barrel to your head.”
Around that time he moved in with his grandma in Parkway Gardens aka O’Block,
which is where he first met Keef.
SD saw how people around him were living and decided he wanted something more
than ending up dead in the street.
He started rapping as a way to make it out,
and linked up with a local producer named DJ Kenn.
DJ Kenn was already making music with Keef at the time.
One day Keef pulled up to the studio when SD and Kenn were working.
Keef and SD were both around 13 at the time, and they immediately hit it off.
They started collaborating on tracks and were kicking it all the time together.
At the same time, Keef’s older cousin Fredo Santana was locked up.
When he got out of jail, he wanted to start a rap group,
which eventually became Glory Boyz Entertainment.
Fredo, Keef, SD, and other artists came together and changed the entire music scene in Chicago.
SD and Keef dropped a ton of tracks together, which helped them both build a buzz in the city.
GBE was starting to attract attention from people outside of Chicago,
and it looked like their plans of taking over the industry
was working better than anyone expected.
SD dropped a few mixtapes in 2012, starting with Life of a Savage.
The project featured a bunch of hot artists from Chicago like Keef, Fredo, King L, and Lil Reese.
Then he followed it up with Life of a Savage 2 later that year.
He wasn’t popping off as much as Keef and Fredo at the time,
but he was still building a large fanbase
and all three of them helped push each other’s careers to the next level.
When Keef’s song Love Sosa dropped,
he featured SD in the video to give him a little shine off the track.
Love Sosa is still one of his most popular songs,
and a lot of people were exposed to SD because of it.
Then Keef put Lil Reese on Don’t Like, which changed everything.
The song went crazy on its own but got even bigger when Kanye West remixed it.
So GBE was in a good position to become the hottest rap crew in the world.
But then surprisingly it ended as quickly as it blew up.
Rap groups have a history of falling apart when they’re at the top of their game.
Just look at what happened with N.W.A, G-Unit, and Bone Thugs-N-Harmony.
GBE was no different.
Fans started to notice that SD wasn’t being featured on any new tracks with Keef,
but no one knew what was really going on.
They came up together,
but now Keef was becoming one of the biggest rappers in the world
while SD faded into the background.
The Chicago drill scene wouldn’t be the same without SD’s influence,
and fans were wondering what happened behind the scenes.
Everyone knew how tight the two rappers were, so SD’s absence was definitely felt.
Rumors started going around that he got kicked out of GBE and was beefing with Keef.
But he was quiet on social media at the time and had pretty much stopped dropping music,
so everyone was left in the dark about what was going on.
SD said in an interview that everything was cool between him and Keef,
but he was just working on his own career.
He made it seem like everyone was tripping over nothing
and that there wasn’t any tension with GBE.
That turned out to be a lie, but no one knew at the time.
During all this, SD decided to fall back from the music.
When he eventually came back,
he explained that he wanted to spend more time with his kids and family.
His own childhood was tough
and he never had a stable figure to guide him through the hard times.
He wanted to make sure his kids ain’t grow up the same way.
He hopped on Instagram Live
and told everyone that he had been taking his kids to school everyday
and was more focused on them.
I've been at home
in my nice house, with my beautiful wife,
with my three lovely daughters, I got five kids.
I got four girls and one son.
You dig what I'm saying?
Taking care of my kids,
taking them to school everyday, doing **** a lot of these ******
they can't do.
But fans just couldn’t leave it alone..
Everytime one of them would hop on Instagram Live,
they’d get asked about what happened and if there was beef between them.
Keef got fed up with the questions and told his fans “Stop asking ‘where SD at?’
Stop that clown ass ****.”
Stop asking where SD at bro
stop that clown ass **** you asking about another man fool
He got his own balls
You asking about a whole other ***** for I don't know fool, that's not me fool
But even though he was annoyed with the questions,
he made it clear that he still had love for SD.
He said on Live “That’s my son. I still love my son.”
That's my son, I still love my son
Some fans thought this was a diss, but if it was he never acknowledged it.
When someone asked if he ***** with Chief Keef on IG Live, SD responded with
“Yes, I **** with Chief Keef.”
Chief Keef, yes I **** with Chief Keef
But later in the video he says “I don’t know what’s wrong with him, man.
He be actin’ like a female sometimes.”
I don’t know what’s wrong with him, man. He be actin’ like a female sometimes man.
SD is smiling and laughing when he says it,
but it’s hard to tell what he was really feeling at the time.
A fan asked him about them collaborating again, and SD said
“I’d love to make some records with him, but I don’t think he wanna do that.
I honestly think he’s scared to do records with me for some reason.”
I'd love to make some records with him
But I don't think he want to do that,
honestly think,
he scared to do records with me for some reason.
I don't know why why he won't do a record with me
No one knows for sure how SD was feeling about Keef at the time,
but all of the questions were starting to get to him too.
He told his fans “This page is about SD.
I’m gettin’ tired of talkin’ about Keef.”
This page about SD
I'm getting tired talking about Keef man
Even though both of them were clearly tired of discussing the situation,
people still wouldn’t leave it alone.
Even if everything was cool between Keef and SD,
rumors started going around that other Glo Gang affiliates
were cropping SD’s face out of old pictures.
But when he was asked about it in interviews, he ain’t seem too upset.
He just laughed it off and said that he don’t have any issue with Glo Gang,
and you’d have to ask them why they’re so mad.
But fans kept asking him about Keef,
so SD finally opened up about what really went down.
When GBE was first blowing up, everyone in the group was on the same level.
No one was really in charge, the whole crew just moved as a team.
According to SD, Keef wanted to change the group name to Glo Boys and become the leader.
He went on Live and told everyone: “He wanted to be the boss...
We always was equal. We all was bosses, we all was workin’ together as a team.”
He wanted to be the boss
there was never no bigger you's or bigger I's,
it's always, we was always equal
we was always bosses
We always our own boss we always working together
we always a team, there wasn't no
you the big guy, you the little folks
you this, there wasn't none of that **** man
it's none of that, never was.
SD wasn’t about to answer to anyone but himself,
so he decided not to join Glo Gang and just work on his own career.
Apparently Fredo felt the same way
and aint like the idea of Keef being the boss of everyone in the crew.
SD helped him come up with the idea for a label called Savage Squad,
and Fredo eventually branched out on his own and created the label without SD.
Now SD was caught in the middle between Keef and Fredo.
He had love for both of them and aint want to pick sides.
From his perspective, it was all just business decisions
and nothing worth starting real beef over.
Fredo and SD were living together at the time and making music,
but SD and Keef had major history together.
So even though they weren’t as close as they used to be,
SD ain’t want to go against Keef and sign to Savage Squad officially.
Really SD just wanted to avoid all the drama and stay focused on his career.
So instead of going with Glo Gang or Savage Squad, he started his own label called Truly Mafia.
He wanted to make sure he had a way out of the streets and could provide a better life for his kids.
He told an interviewer “Everybody trying to figure out a way to get from where they at.
Nobody wanna be where they at.”
But in 2019, rumors surfaced that SD was living on the street and addicted to crack.
People were saying that he was begging Keef for help,
but Keef told everyone that SD was dead to him.
The rumors were never confirmed, but if SD did go through a rough patch
he’s bounced back since then.
SD seemed like he was really trying to elevate himself out of the place he started.
But when you come up in Chicago, it’s almost impossible to avoid beef.
A dude from his old hood named BlackGate Benz Zoe
started sending shots at him on social media.
Benz Zoe said SD wasn’t BlackGate and that he’d beat his ass if he came to the block.
SD ass ain't blackgate
SD's ass cut
If his ***** ass come to the block I'm beating his ass
According to rumors, Benz was upset because SD tried to charge him for a feature
instead of doing it for free.
Luckily they squashed the beef before it got serious.
Benz gave a shout out to SD in an interview
and said that he was just going to move forward and get his bag.
Beef in Chicago can often lead to murder,
But Benz and SD both took the high road instead of taking it to the streets.
After Fredo tragically passed away in 2018,
SD said he was even more motivated to get his life right.
You can tell that he’s really serious about not meeting the same fate
as so many people around him have.
A lot of rappers would have used an alleged beef with Chief Keef
to get some clout and fame,
but SD never took the bait and decided to avoid unnecessary drama.
In an interview in 2022,
he said that his line is always open if Keef wants to hit him up.
Fans might have been hoping for something more “entertaining,”
but at the end of the day, SD and Keef have been homies for a long time
and he obviously don’t want to just throw their relationship away over something stupid.
SD helped create the legendary Chicago drill movement,
and hopefully he can start to get the recognition he deserves.
It sounds like he has the right mindset to move forward with his career
and get back in the spotlight.
Hopefully he’ll link back up with Keef and drop bangers like they did back in the day.
Glory Boyz Entertainment
was right on the edge of becoming one of the most legendary rap groups in history,
but unfortunately they couldn’t hold it together long enough
to capitalize on their success.
Chief Keef is still one of the most respected artists in the game,
but everyone in GBE could have leveled up their careers if they all moved as a unit.
Unfortunately Fredo died before the original crew could come back together.
But if Keef and SD can get back on the same page and start working again,
it’s almost a guarantee that whatever they drop will be fire.