It’s the Thursday before Christmas, and 17-year-old Dikembe Caston, who raps under the name Kembe X, is hanging out at his house with his crew—a collective of hip-hop fiends and friends that he calls the Village. He lives in suburban South Holland with his mom, Jacquelyn Caston, and a younger sister, and he and his frequent partner, Alex Wiley, have both dropped out of high school.
Download two tracks by the Village (Kembe X and Alex Wiley), including the previously unreleased “Tell They Ass Wassup.”
Tell They Ass Wassup2:50The Village (Kembe X and Alex Wiley)
Good Lawd3:49The Village (Kembe X and Alex Wiley) feat. Calez of 2008ighties
Caston doesn’t bite. “It’s hella daytime.”
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Self Rule has attracted buzz from rap blogs with a Chicago focus (Ruby Hornet) and others with national audiences (2dopeboyz), as well as from Big Ghost Fase, who’s gotten a lot of attention himself for blogging hip-hop reviews in the persona of Ghostface Killah; he cosigned the mix tape on Twitter. To make the most of this good fortune, Caston is ramping up his plans. He and Wiley originally wanted their first release of the year to be a mix tape titled Kembe X and Alex Wiley Make a Grilled Cheese, but now everything is up in the air—and there’s a lot more happening at once.
Not bad, considering Caston hasn’t been rapping for even two years. He’s a dropout but not a burnout, and his music speaks to his intelligence. “When I look at it,” says his mother, “he could have passed the GED in eighth grade.” Caston spent time in four schools from fall 2008 to fall 2010 before finally leaving for good. He was home-schooled for a short stint, though he didn’t take to it. “I basically considered that me dropping out,” he says. “After the first week or two I wasn’t doing anything. I was playing video games.” Caston had been sure for years that he wanted nothing to do with school. “I knew that I didn’t want to do anything, like, that didn’t have to do with either me drawing or me making music,” he says.
Caston heard the bad news the night Kyles died. He couldn’t sleep, so instead he wrote an existential anthem called “The Wager (In Rod We Lust)”; he scrapped most of the work he’d done for Self Rule and recorded eight new tracks from scratch. At his friend’s funeral, Caston recognized the name of one of Kyles’s uncles and realized that he and Kyles were cousins. “It kind of fucked me up when I found out that he was my cousin,” he says. “I don’t have anybody that I’m related to that I can relate to.”
Denton says he’s been in touch with rappers Action Bronson and Amanda Seales (formerly Amanda Diva) as well as comedian Andy Milonakis about collaborating with the Village. (None of the three replied to e-mails seeking comment by press time.) He’s gotten through to rising southeast-side MC King Louie, who wore an Ambition Chicago shirt in the video for “He’s on Fire.” Earlier this month Denton landed a commission-based job as A&R president at indie hip-hop label Mathaus Entertainment, where he interned over the summer—he gets a small percentage of whatever income the artists he signs bring in. He’s also started blogging for Ruby Hornet himself.
