There’s a new generation of Chicago drill rappers who can hardly remember a time before drill. Just like the scene’s original architects, these are artists of high school age or barely beyond it, and to them, the sound might as well be sewn into the fabric of America. At this point I’m not sure if there’s a metropolitan area in the country without a drill scene, even if they don’t exactly call it that. In many ways, the sound’s migration outside of Chicago’s borders has flattened the music, normalizing the tragedy and losing the specificity of its reference points in local street rap and Atlanta trap. I like some of the offshoots—mainly in New York or over in the DMV—but it does often feel like a trendy way for aspiring rappers to chase internet fame through shock (for example: Jacksonville drill) instead of a direct extension of the groundbreaking, morally complicated genre.
You can’t say that about BabyChiefDoit, a drill pupil out of Chicago’s South Side who is messing around with a style that he absorbed through osmosis. He’s been off to the races since July, when he put out “Pancakes & Drugs,” which channels the controlled mayhem of G Herbo’s “Who Run It” flow, even incorporating a Three 6 Mafia sample. BabyChief is a teenager but looks about 12, which I realized when I watched a vlog of him downing a plate of tater tots in an airport. He has a short stature that he embraces like Phife Dawg and Muggsy Bogues. He sometimes strolls around music videos holding a monkey mask and he’s really into the idea of comparing the chaos in his city to the zoo—which, from Ol’ Dirty Bastard to Chief Keef, is nothing new. Naturally, his debut mixtape is called ANIMALS ONLY, a rowdy spree of shit-talk that packs every era of Chicago drill into 12 songs.
He’s got all the corners covered. There’s early Chief Keef in the hellish, apocalyptic beats with footwork-fast BPMs, like “Look Up,” where BabyChief’s straightforward drill threats sound backed by a mass of cicadas. The intensity you could hear in that era between Young Pappy and FBG Duck is present in his typically hookless, pedal-to-the-metal raps. He’s absolutely buggin’ out on “EBGDITB”—the mic had to have been covered with saliva. There’s a splash of post-Def Jam Lil Durk in his almost emo sing-raps, a mood that’s evocative on “Drowned” but overly familiar on “Laugh at Em.” Somehow, like YoungBoy’s Cash Money and No Limit-honoring mixtape 3800 Degrees, ANIMALS ONLY threads in its source material so naturally that the obvious homage doesn’t overshadow BabyChiefDoit as a rapper. He’s not cramming it in as if he were studying for the SATs: Drill sounds a part of him.
That must be why BabyChief is having so much fun with Animals Only. On “Doit the Best,” he’s randomly babbling in Jamaican patois and whipping out charged-up Waka Flocka “bow” ad-libs, while the distorted, buffering drums echo through the bathroom of a doomy rave. “Zoo Life Blessing” is one of those noirish Gargoyles beats popular in the Philly drill scene and his fast rapping meshes nicely. The nuttiest song on the whole tape is “King of the Jungle,” an audio slasher flick driven by the constant trumpeting of an elephant, a heartracing BPM level-up at the halfway point, and his tortured screams. “Too Slow,” with the loose-lipped Chicagoan Star Bandz, has them in turbo mode over a sinister snap beat. Though it’s undeniably squeamish hearing two teens talk so aggro, they’re a great duo; she’s threatening to smack someone’s mom and his flow has an irresistible bounce. After listening a dozen times in a row I wondered if they were trying to tap into the spirit of one of the classic flamethrowing drill duets, like “Kill Shit” or “Play for Keeps,” though given their age and roots the answer is probably simpler: They’re just rapping.
