Chief Keef
Keith Farrelle Cozart, better known by his stage name Chief Keef, is an American rapper and record producer. Born and raised in South Side Chicago, he began his recording career as a teenager and initially garnered regional attention and praise for his mixtapes in the early 2010s. Cozart is often credited with popularizing the hip hop subgenre drill for mainstream audiences, and is considered a progenitor of the genre.
His fifth mixtape, Back from the Dead, spawned the single "I Don't Like", which became a local hit and marked his first entry on the Billboard Hot 100. A bidding war between several major labels resulted in Cozart signing with Interscope Records, who commercially re-released the song, along with its follow-up, "Love Sosa", which received quintuple platinum certification by the Recording Industry Association of America. Both served as lead singles for his debut studio album, Finally Rich, which was met with moderate critical and commercial response, also serving as his only release on a major label. His following independent studio albums—Bang 3, Bang 3, Pt. 2, 4Nem, and Almighty So 2 —have each entered the Billboard 200. Two of his guest appearances—on the songs "Bean " by Lil Uzi Vert and "All the Parties" by Drake—have peaked within the top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100.
Early life, family and education
Keith Farrelle Cozart was born in Chicago, Illinois, on August 15, 1995, to Lolita Carter who was unwed. He is named after his deceased uncle, Keith Carter, who was known as Big Keef. He lived at the Parkway Garden Homes located in the Washington Park neighborhood on the city's South Side, a stronghold for the Black Disciples street gang of which Chief Keef is a member. Sociologist R. L'Heureux Lewis-McCoy described Chief Keef's mentality as a member, "Chicago’s Black Disciples is central to who he is and who he should be".Chief Keef has been estranged from his biological father, Alfonso Cozart, since he was a year old. His legal guardian was his grandmother, Margaret Carter with whom he lived in Chicago. She worked as a school bus driver.
He began rapping as a five-year-old using his mother's karaoke machine and tapes to record his music.
During his childhood, Chief Keef attended Dulles Elementary School and Dyett High School. He dropped out of Dyett in his freshman year.
Career
Early years, ''Finally Rich'', and subsequent mixtapes (2011–2013)
Chief Keef started rapping in 2008 and released his debut mixtape, UF Overload, in 2009. In 2011, he first attracted local attention from Chicago's South Side community with his mixtapes, The Glory Road and Bang. In December, he was arrested for firing a gun from his car in Chicago's Washington Park neighborhood; he was placed under house arrest at his grandmother's residence for 30 days, followed by another 30 days of home confinement. While under house arrest, he posted several videos to his YouTube account, forerunners to Chicago's hip hop subgenre, drill.Chief Keef met Japanese immigrant producer, DJ Kenn, through his uncle. DJ Kenn worked with Chief Keef on many of his earliest songs, and was involved with the 'Glory Boys Entertainment' collective.
Keef's song "I Don't Like" became a hit in Chicago. A local party promoter called it "the perfect Chicago song because 'niggas just hate everything out here'". It caught Kanye West's attention, and he remixed the song with rappers Pusha T, Jadakiss and Big Sean. As a result, Keef "suddenly shot up out of obscurity".
In the summer of 2012, Chief Keef was the subject of a bidding war among record labels wishing to sign him, including Young Jeezy's CTE World. While 2012 proved to be a relatively quiet year in terms of his musical output, Chief Keef began the year by signing with Interscope Records. In a separate deal, he was promised his own label imprint, Glory Boyz Entertainment. The deal was worth $6,000,000 over a three album layout, with an additional $440,000 advance to establish GBE.
The deal gave Interscope the right to pull out of the contract if Chief Keef's debut album Finally Rich, released on December 18, 2012, had failed to sell 250,000 copies by December 2013. Featured guests on the album include rappers: 50 Cent, Wiz Khalifa, Young Jeezy, Rick Ross and his fellow Glory Boyz member Lil Reese. In May 2013 he signed with 1017 Brick Squad Records.
Chief Keef is featured on "Hold My Liquor", the fifth track on Kanye West's album, Yeezus, released on June 18, 2013. Keef's contributions to the track were praised by musician Lou Reed who said, "'Hold My Liquor' is just heartbreaking, and particularly coming from where it's coming from – listen to that incredibly poignant hook from a tough guy like Chief Keef, wow."
On his 18th birthday, August 15, 2013, Chief Keef celebrated by releasing the mixtape Bang, Pt. 2. It was highly anticipated as the first project following his debut album, but received a mixed to negative critical response. On October 12, 2013, another mixtape, Almighty Sosa, was released. Like Bang, Pt. 2, Almighty Sosa also received mixed to negative critical reviews. After serving his October 2013 jail term, he began working on his second studio album and a biopic.
''Nobody'' and ''Bang 3'' (2014–2016)
Chief Keef began experimenting with producing his music in 2014. Meaghan Garvey of The Fader noted this was fitting as the rapper has "always been more concerned with vibe than meaning, and production is his most efficient tool to create a mood without getting bogged down by pesky syntax." In January, Chief Keef announced he was working on a new mixtape, Bang 3. In February, he unveiled the cover art to his upcoming mixtape, Back From The Dead 2, the sequel to his critically acclaimed mixtape, Back From The Dead. During February, Chief Keef said his former lean addiction and bad mixing contributed to the lack of quality music on his two mixtape projects Bang Pt. 2 and Almighty So and that he was disappointed in both projects.Later in February 2014, he announced an EP, Bang 4, before his second studio album Bang 3, as a preview. The following day, Fredo Santana announced he and Chief Keef were going to release an album collaboration. In March, Keef released "Fuck Rehab", the first official single from Bang 3,?featuring his fellow Glo Gang artist and cousin Mario "Blood Money" Hess. This marked Hess's final recording before his death on April 9, 2014. On March 14 Chief Keef released the official music video for "Fuck Rehab". Although Interscope executive Larry Jackson announced that Bang 3 would be released on June 10, it was delayed again.
In October 2014, Chief Keef was dropped by Interscope Records. He confirmed via Twitter that every project he had planned, including the release of the long-awaited Bang 3, would still be released. Young Chop criticized Interscope's decision to drop Chief Keef. Despite being set for a December 2014 release, Bang 3 did not materialize. Chief Keef's mixtapes, Mansion Musick set for a November 28 release, and Thot Breakers set to release on February 14, 2015, were not released as announced. However, he was successful in releasing Big Gucci Sosa, a 12-track collaborative mixtape, with Gucci Mane, as well as Back from the Dead 2, which was made available for digital download from iTunes.
Chief Keef self-produced 16 of the 20 songs on the mixtape. David Drake of Pitchfork Media said, "For his first steps into the rapper-producer territory, he shows promise—though it's tough to imagine most of these beats working outside the context of a Chief Keef album, as they are primed to frame his vocals." Rolling Stone ranked the mixtape 25th on its list of the 40 best rap albums of 2014 commenting, "The bleak world from which he came still shapes his sound; it's a bleak and lonely record, with few guests and a darkly psychedelic shape formed by drugs and likely PTSD. Yet he finds a gleeful humanity inside the world's rotten core, with bluntly potent, economical rapping that gets strong mileage per word."
In November, he announced Nobody, a "Glo Producer album" that featured guest vocals by Kanye West and Tadoe. It was set to be released on December 2, but appeared on December 16. The album's title track was noted for being one of Keef's more emotionally driven tracks. Chris Coplan of Consequence of Sound wrote "the track itself feels like the apex of a night spent binge-drinking." The album was awarded a 7.0/10 score by Pitchfork Medias Meaghan Garvey.
On February 18, 2015, Chief Keef released Sorry 4 the Weight, a 20-track mixtape. Elliott Pearson of The Alibi commented: "Sorry 4 the Weight is another consistent chapter in the rapper's singular Midwestern gothic repertoire, and if 'What Up' is any indication, he's made serious progress as a beat-maker too." The mixtape was largely a solo effort, featuring only Andy Milonakis and Glo Gang labelmate, Benji Glo. In 2015, his track "Faneto" was slowly building momentum since its October 2014 release. On April 24, 2015, Chief Keef announced his next album, titled The Cozart, saying it would be released soon. In 2015, he signed with FilmOn, a television streaming company owned by Greek billionaire Alki David in 2015. Keef later named his son Sno FilmOn Dot Com Cozart to promoteBang 3, but the label retracted their naming rights to his son.
On July 11, 2015, Capo, a longtime member of Chief Keef's Glo Gang label, was shot and killed in a drive-by shooting in Chicago. After killing Capo, the driver of the vehicle reportedly struck a stroller holding 13-month-old Dillan Harris, killing him instantly. Chief Keef announced on Twitter he would be holding a free benefit concert as a tribute to Capo and encouraged concertgoers to donate to the Harris family. He also announced the formation of the Stop the Violence Now Foundation, in an attempt to decrease crime in Chicago. Because of outstanding warrants in Illinois, Keef was scheduled to attend the concert via hologram from a sound stage in Beverly Hills, California.
The concert, organized by HologramUSA and FilmOn Music, was planned to be held in Chicago's Redmoon Theater. It faced a series of delays after Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel's office claimed Chief Keef was "an unacceptable role model" and that his music promoted violence. Chief Keef's representatives then worked out an arrangement with promoters of Craze Fest in Hammond, Indiana, to hold the concert there. Local police stopped Keef from performing again. Chief Keef's hologram made a plea for peace in Chicago saying, "Stop the violence, stop nonsense, stop the killing. Let the kids grow up", before performing "I Don't Like". Fearing the concert was a threat to public safety, Hammond mayor Thomas McDermott, Jr. had the city's police department shut down the generators powering Chief Keef's hologram. McDermott was quoted as saying, "I know nothing about Chief Keef. All I'd heard was he has a lot of songs about gangs and shooting people—a history that's anti-cop, pro-gang and pro-drug use. He's been basically outlawed in Chicago, and we're not going to let circumvent Mayor Emanuel by going next door." Chicago Tribune columnist Eric Zorn criticized Emmanuel and Hammond for their decisions, claiming they infringed upon Chief Keef's First Amendment rights.
In November, Keef's contract with FilmOn was suspended over management issues. The following month, FilmOn sued Keef's management team and producers for the unauthorized release of music.