Music
Kweku Collins: A Chicago Rapper With a Fresh Voice
The young musician is carving out his own space in Chicago's vibrant but crowded hip-hop scene.
Kweku Collins got home from school, beelined to his computer, pulled up the beat he’d been working on, dug the lyrics he’d been scratching onto a piece of paper out of his pocket — and that’s when it dawned on him.
He would pursue music seriously.
"I would no longer go right to the board — skateboarding took a backseat to music," explains the 20-year-old rapper and producer who once dreamed of becoming a professional skateboarder. He’s calling me from the road, driving home to Evanston, IL, from a show opening for British singer NAO the night prior. "There was a point I realized I could make music and I was kinda good at it and that was all I did. I still skate. But when I’d come home from school, I’d go to my computer. That was all I did."
So far, full immersion seems like the right decision. Since signing with Chicago’s indie darling Closed Sessions in March 2015, Collins has released two genre-fusing projects ("Say It Here, While It’s Safe" and "Nat Love") crammed with witty, whip-smart observations and sophisticated rhyme patterns to positive reviews that sound nothing like area hip-hop legends Kanye West or Chief Keef or Crucial Conflict (he does have a bit in common with Chance the Rapper, though). He’s racked up giddy profiles in Pitchfork, Billboard, Stereogum and MTV ("Deeply powerful and eminently innovative," wrote the latter) and performed to sold-out hometown crowds.
Just as impressive might be his response to all that, though. Plenty of young artists drown in the deep end but Collins's head is very much above water. When I mention that music seems to be on the verge of really happening for him, he speaks cautiously.
"It seems that way but things really aren’t ever as they seem — especially in the industry. There’s no formula to it, no science behind it," he says. "It’s very fickle things. I try not to think about it in terms like that. I try to think, 'OK, that’s done, now I have to work harder.' I have to make better music than I did at 19. I’m a year older now; I can’t be in the same place. It’s really just an incentive to work that much harder."
Growing up in a creative family helped shape Collins's wise mentality. His mother was a dancer before going back to college to become a teacher and his father was a drummer and stay-at-home dad who introduced Collins to music. Xylophones, guitars and drums were always strewn about the house, and Collins tagged after his dad, imitating him.
"I’ve been making songs since like fourth grade with a four-track recorder and a microphone hanging off a lampshade at the house," he says, laughing. "I been doin’ this shit for a minute."
When he was a freshman, he posted his first mixtape online, and the next year he joined the poetry team, swayed by the proximity to Chicago’s Louder than a Bomb, the world’s largest youth poetry slam. He enrolled in a class that taught him how to create and record beats and equipped with that knowledge, his experience writing poetry and a microphone his parents had given him for Christmas, he recorded almost three full-length projects in the span of a year.
After Pigeons and Planes premiered his "Worlds Away" EP in January 2015, he began sending it to various people, including the guys at Closed Sessions. By spring, Collins had signed with them.
It’s clear Collins has the talent. The tricky part will be making sure his voice is heard in a city crowded with more rising rappers than ever.
"I feel [intimidated by the musical legacy of Chicago] for sure, every day. While I am from Evanston, the town over, I’m still included in a lot of the Chicago conversations," he says. "I think I am a new voice. It’s just a matter of whether or not people wanna hear what I have to say."
Kweku Collins performs Nov. 6 at Echoplex with Tory Lanez and Pell as part of Red Bull Sound Select: 30 Days in LA. For more details, go to 30days.redbullsoundselect.com.