back during the pandemic, my music consumption went up about tenfold as i couldn’t leave the pad. i went down every rabbit hole i could to find new music from artists i had never heard of. i’m constantly chasing the dragon looking for a new hit from an unknown rapper. the problem is that our attention spans are totally f*cked and i only was only giving about 10 seconds of listening time to new tracks. nowadays, rappers need to capture a listener’s ear quicker than ever so the first few seconds of a song mean everything. enter chris crack…
the name alone caught my attention… i get it… you see the name “crack” and you probably feel a certain way.. but…. you see that name and you stop and think for an extra second right? now add in a catchy song title and again, you’re stopping for an extra second right?? before you’ve even hit play and you’re already wondering what is going on because your interest is piqued. i saw that rapper name of chris crack and the song called “hoes at trader joe’s” and of course i had to give this a spin… oh wait, the track is less than ninety seconds too? aight bet…
the beat was on some jermaine dupri sh*t and here i was vibing in my computer chair wondering who this cat was. i went to the album that “hoes at trader joe’s” was on and cmon… it was called white people love algorithms. chris crack was literally checking every box for how to get noticed in the twenties in this digital era we live in. even the artwork had me wondering what was going on…
chris crack reminded me of danny brown, weezy, and young thug with his voice… but his creativity was unmatched in this new era of hip hop. wherever i searched chris crack i was laughing my ass off or tuning the f*ck in… sometimes both… i remember looking mr. crack up on youtube and seeing him for the first time. again… dude was checking alllllllllllllllllllllll of the boxes on how to win in the twenties… his diy type of aesthetic was… well… idk… addicting? ahhhhhh… that’s that chris crack….
spotify knew i was all in on chris crack (pause) and my release radar and daily playlists were starting to get filled with more tracks from chris crack. the short songs were honestly refreshing as i struggle to get through any songs longer than three minutes unless the beat changes up or the emcees have different cadences on their sixteens. the days of verse-chorus-verse-chorus.verse had been thrown out and replaced with short songs that could quickly catch somebody’s attention. and spotify seeing that you listen to a whole song, even if it’s under two minutes, really means something. yup, white dudes really be loving those algos.
chris crack is from chicago and grew up on nineties chi-town greats like do or die, twista, and crucial conflict… chicago rap in the nineties was straight up pimpin plus a little common sense for the conscious rap fans. i feel chicago doesn’t get the respect it deserves… kanye, lupe, shawnna, chance, keef, durk, polo g…. you can stand up chicago rap with other big cities on the map and chi-town is likely going to win the battle unless you’re some of the major cities like los angeles, new york, atlanta, memphis, houston, etc. but nowadays, where you’re from is kind of blurred… if you’re dope, you’re dope… and fam, chris crack is dope. i mean, you know he’s on fool’s gold right????
chris crack should be under the webster’s dictionary for winning in the digital age. those song titles of his can’t be beat… most make you go, huh? others make you go, ha! but most just make you want to peep the track to see what chris crack is all about. chris is a rapper who i feel hasn’t dropped his classic album yet but each album has slappers. his ear for beats is legendary and he just seems to have the secret formula on how to catch your attention in today’s rap game.
if you know chris crack, i don’t need to hip you to the game. but if you’ve never heard of him, go check him out wherever you listen to music. you might just catch something like this and say, damn, that’s catchy AF.
here’s his latest single that once again is a song title that makes you want to press play…. so… press play fam… “tiny jean pocket is for your spotify money” is one of the better song names you’ll hear all year. and it’s only sixty nine seconds long so i’m sure you can spare the minute….
here’s his spotify best of if you’re not into typing out a few characters on your phones, computers, word processers, etc…..