♫♪  Lil Herb - “Koolin’”

Lil Herb is from Chicago. Chicago has been getting hype lately because of the phenomenon known as drill — morbid, violent, minimalist (that’s me being polite) rap music from a very dangerous part of the United States. Noisey has made a documentary series about it called Chiraq. Many of the rising drill stars, including Lil Herb, have yet to enter their second decade. The beat to “Koolin’,” off of Herbee’s tape Welcome to Fazoland is characteristically abrasive, and will make your trunk thump like you’ve just kidnapped somebody. Drill’s poster-boy, Chief Keef, famous for being a reckless teenager and never being allowed to legally leave his house, usually rhymes the same words together, which gets old rather quickly. Lil Herb is worth the listen because he very deliberately separates himself from his more lexically impaired contemporaries by rhyming words with different words. Real talk, Lil Herb has a dexterous pair of lips, and sounds a bit like Ludacris if Ludacris was more concerned with the “hell-hole he grew up in” instead of puns about Michael Phelps. His choice of beats is Legal Seafood-fresh, with the choir sample adding depth to spartan, war-zone bass.

BONUS BONUS BONUS: this song is called “Kill Shit.” It features Lil Bibby, and the best line is by far “kill a nigga like sticky rice.”

• Welcome to Fazoland: http://www.datpiff.com/Lil-Herb-Welcome-To-Fazoland-mixtape.580474.html

Chocolate Grinder

CHOCOLATE GRINDER is our audio/visual section, with an emphasis on the lesser heard and lesser known. We aim to dig deep, but we’ll post any song or video we find interesting, big or small.

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