Lifelong friends and collaborators Rich Jones and Montana Macks focused on the local for last fall’s How do you sleep at night?, skipping streaming altogether and selling tapes on Bandcamp or hand-to-hand. The album closes with “Locals Only,” an old-school posse cut featuring five other Chicago MCs powered by a choice horn sample.
For the new “Locals Only” video, directing team New Trash filmed each rapper separately then green-screened them together, but the pandemic precaution also fits the theme of the song: they all feel like guides at different stops on a comprehensive tour. The animation is packed with Easter eggs that go far deeper into the culture of the city than the tired deep dish cliches peddled by Netflix shows and news outlets alike. (I’m partial to the Chicago Reader box myself.)
Matt Muse kicks it off, bumping Do Or Die while yelling “fuck 12” and charging white people extra as a form of reparations. Defcee disses squandered potential and industry plants, scoffing that a rumble pack wouldn’t shake their hands. SKECH185’s memories are a torrent of imagery – shadow-painted smiles, sitting summers, illustrated absence – until he muses “It’s abstract if you weren’t there.” Minnesota transplant Psalm One shouts out her guns by make and model and kicks into a dense triplet flow for a bar to boast about her personal growth. Jovan Landry name drops Italian ice and R&B/rap radio station Vocalo in the same bar. Jones calls out “Chi-raq” dropping tourists and CPD torturers alike in a stoned murmur, like the host bidding farewell at the end of his own party.
Hundreds of thousands of people visited Chicago last weekend for Lollapalooza, but that mega-festival is the “Chicago beachhead” of Live Nation, one of the largest live entertainment corporations in the world. If you want a real understanding of Chicago’s music, let some true locals show you around.
Originally published on 1833.