As I mentioned in my Year In Review piece on “the best things about Chicago music,” the hip-hop scene’s empire is full of exciting, vital music. It often feels excessive, and there’s stuff that always falls through the cracks. With that in mind here are five great local hip-hop releases from 2014 that I thought were overlooked in one way or another—this isn’t definitive, but these five definitely deserve your attention.
Precise, Ladies Love Mixtapes: The EP:
The three guys in this shape-shifting group take genres and throw them together like they’re splattering paint on a canvas. The resulting colors are interesting more often than not, and rapper-singer Victor Birriel and rapper-singer Anthony Amponin have the puckish verve to try odd gestures—like a sudden swing at something resembling patois “Kismet”—and make them work atop ever-evolving party-rap tracks.
