Four years ago Rhymefest, aka Che Smith, seemed poised to be Chicago’s next breakout hip-hop artist. A nimble lyricist with a sharp wit coloring his conscious streak, he’d shared a Grammy with Kanye in 2005 for cowriting “Jesus Walks,” and he was scheduled to release his first proper album, Blue Collar, on Allido, an imprint of J Records run by DJ and producer Mark Ronson. But Blue Collar was met with a collective shrug when it came out in July 2006. Now freed from his major-label contract, Smith is in the driver’s seat of his career, and this week he drops his long-delayed second album, El Che, on the indie dNBe Entertainment. He hosts a combination listening party and record-release show at the Shrine this Thursday.
I live on the south-south side—I live where a lot of the violence is taking place. I have the nice building in the hood, but the building right next to me is infested with “the element.” I live by Washington Park. It’s funny because I live in the hood near Barack, you’d think we’re doing good—but the amount of violence that happens in a ten-mile radius of here, it should be embarrassing to him. He should have more to say about the violence around his hood.
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You wrote the other night on Twitter that you had a million dollars and you realize now you should have kept it in your hood—invested it in your hood. What did you mean by that?
Yes. They say athletes who are 33 or 34, whatever league they are in, are old. It doesn’t matter if they are still fast. In music, it’s even worse. Everyone’s got some new 17-year-old they’re promoting—it doesn’t matter that they have no talent, it’s that they are young and new.
To be a rock star, a king—a leader—you have to be a bit narcissistic. You gotta believe in your 15 minutes; you have to be into the illusion. This is how America was made—someone who believed the impossible could happen! But one thing I understand now is that the label doesn’t make that happen—you make it happen. This is the way it is today—you have to be famous to be signed. Has my narcissism left? Hell no! [Laughs.] I’m just not fooled anymore. I know I am the best! [Laughs.] There is no rapper in Chicago who can bring what I can. Not even Kanye.
People like things now simply because they’re popular. Everything is numbers. We are truly in a capitalist society—it’s all about quantity. Welcome!
