A Guide To King L

“Yeah, it’s like trap and drill and house.”

That was Kanye West, discussing Yeezus in a recent interview with the New York Times. Yeezus features only two guest rappers—Chief Keef and King Louie—both of whom emerged from the Chicago's local “drill scene." Keef, of course, became a divisive flashpoint over the course of the past year, due in large part to his young age.

King Louie has been overshadowed in the mainstream press, which remained largely clueless about the scene’s sound and origins. But at the time of Keef's arrival, Louie was actually the much bigger artist in Chicago, a deft lyricist who represented Dro City, the neighborhood in the city's Woodlawn section considered the origin point of drill music.

Louie already has an established catalog; his first tape, Boss Shit, came out in 2008, and gained considerable local buzz. Shortly thereafter, he was struck by a car and seriously injured. He had to learn to walk again. By late 2010, he recovered, and began releasing new music, beginning with the video for “I’m Arrogant.” Soon, his buzz built enough throughout Chicago that he caught the attention of Kanye West’s former manager John Monopoly, who signed on to guide his career.

The Chicago scene, though, had developed organically. The drill scene in particular had a unique sound, and until Keef gained the attention of national publications, King Louie’s music actually better encapsulated the varied dimensions of the music's style. Formed around Louie’s crew—producer LoKey, fellow Fly Entertainment rapper Big Homie Doe, Boss Woo and Loose Cannon, among others—drill bore a heavy influence of southern rap, but was also shaped by local culture and slang, Chicago’s unique gang-oriented geography, and whatever popular rap had most recently made a national impact.

For more on King Louie’s biography, check out our interview with the rapper here. But to get a crash-course in his music, check out A Guide to King L...

Written by David Drake (@somanyshrimp)

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Mixtape: Boss Shit

King Louie's first mixtape, Boss Shit, had a very different sound than the rapper's later tapes. Only 21 years old at the time, he rapped with a more straightforward flow, one that fell into familiar, punchline-oriented rhyme patterns. Nonetheless, the music has a whirlwind energy, and the rhymes had the same dexterous effortlessness that's marked his music since. Although available on download spots like DatPiff, Boss Shit was largely a product of the old way of distribution, passed out hand-to-hand.

Sonically, the beats are very of-the-era, showing the influence of the production that was hot in South Side Chicago at the time-heavily influenced by the sounds that were popping in places like Baton Rouge and Atlanta. Louie rapped over beats jacked from Soulja Boy's "Crank Dat," T-Pain's "Buy You a Drink" and Hurricane Chris' "Ay Bay Bay."

Louie liked to describe his style as "gumbo," though, and there were definitely other influences on his sound at this point. "Rude Boy" is a straight dancehall track. "Talking Shit," has a distinctly rock'n'roll sound. But the standout at the time was "What That Mouth Do." With minimalist synth production from LoKey, a former R. Kelly collaborator, the song is about blowjobs, and became one of Louie's most well-known tracks, a rude-and-lewd introduction that set the table for the seamy rap style that would define his style.

Mixtape: Man Up Band Up "The Mixtape Before the Mixtape"

After Boss Shit made its initial impact, Louie was struck by a car and was seriously injured. He had to relearn how to walk, and seemed to vanish from the music scene. His return came with a video for "I'm Arrogant," produced by Troy P of Hustle Squad Productions in "A Milli"-style and released on YouTube in late 2010. It also appeared on Man Up Band Up "The Mixtape Before the Mixtape," a release funded by his then-sponsor Doobie clothing, and which featured an animated Louie on the front cover with his distinctive broken front teeth (since repaired).

"I'm Arrogant" introduced his new rap style, where he would lock into a unique, hypnotic rhyme cadence, each line building into a song with its own cyclical, MC Escher-like logic. "I'm Arrogant" has no chorus, instead relying on its rhyme pattern as a hook.

It can take a minute to tune in what he's actually saying, but once a listener catches on, it becomes apparent how many clever lines he's built into each verse: "Drop the top, on the coupe/And just cruise in the nude/I know you see me YouTube/Superbad, I need lube/And your bitch need Lou/I'm a boss, fuck you!/My Lemonade need cubes."

Mixtape: More Boss Shit

Shortly after "I'm Arrogant" took off, a new video surfaced in early 2011, with two songs attached. The first was called "Kush Too Strong," and it became another fan favorite and (primarily) regional hit. This time, he was joined by rapper Boss Woo, and rapped as if in a dreamlike state over the pillowy-est of production. The song's mantra-like chorus and soft-focus beat make the track feel like an escapist fantasy, as if Louie is simultaneously resisting and succumbing to the numbing power of the narcotic.

Mixtape: More Boss Shit

This track showed up at the end of Louie's More Boss Shit mixtape, and crept in at the end of the "Kush Too Strong" video. Produced by LoKey, who lives up to his name with this subtle, graceful canvas, "Get Money" glides with demure confidence. Louie has edgier songs, more aggressive ones, and more lyrical moments, but none that match his effortless delivery so perfectly. A diamond in his catalog, the song's subtlety gives it a glacial purity. It's packed with quotable lines ("no slaves dog, our whips are cars," "AK-47 spit, bitch, duck or soak"), but the track's climactic moment comes with a series of internal rhymes in its second verse: "Purple potion, cause slow motion, plus we chokin' smokin' potent." Louie ends each verse with "It's nothin' else to fuckin' do," like an accidental echo of Common's "Nuthin' to Do," and twinned with the song's spacious production, it captures the humbling expansiveness of the city's wide streets, open topography, and lack of opportunity.

Mixtape: More Boss Shit

This track comes from King Louie's More Boss Shit, which was Louie's strongest tape to this point, from the mystique-building of "Gumbo" (which uses Harry Fraud's beat for French Montana, "Dreamin'") to the similarly-transcendent "Live and Important." As synthesizers tumble downward as if disintegrating, "Live and Important" has a wistful aggression, if such a thing is possible. Louie's verse has a particularly brutal cleverness: "Fight the case, may take a year/Fuck the jakes, no bacon-fear/Fly as fuck I'm made of Lear/On my paper, call me "dear," sincerely/here a G, they envy 'cuz they feelin' me."

Mixtape: More Boss Shit

Perhaps one of Louie's most lyrical outings to this point, "Mr. Incredible" featured a skittering helium vocal sample and a hint at the brutally violent undercurrent to the street rap coming out of Chicago. The content here is as filled with unapologetic gunplay as anything released by more maligned members of Chicago's drill movement, but with densely-packed wordplay that shows a marriage of East Coast and down South rap styles. Then suddenly he'll drop a funny line in the middle ("Gucci boots got me confused, like how they lace that?") which gives his raps a vibe of gallows humor, even if he's the executioner: "My flow's triple-six, red-rum bars/Swiss-cheese cars/Bullets through doors send his ass to the stars/With a mask, no charge."

Mixtape: Chiraq Drillinois

The first single pushed after John Monopoly jumped on board, "Too Cool" was also the first track that seemed to get much attention outside of Chicago. But before it received a video and local radio airplay, the song was a track from Chiraq Drillinois, a mixtape with Call of Duty-styled cover art and an equally violent street edge. "Too Cool," though, was the most mainstream-friendly track, so it made sense for a single. Its jovial production, courtesy Hustle Squad's H.B. on the Track, alternates between synthesizer twinkles and sudden massive kick drums. Paired with Louie's catchy hook, it successfully captured Lou's sense of humor without being overly dominated by descriptions of bullet-behavior, but his unique style wasn't compromised in the effort; it's one of Louie's most Louie-esque efforts. Captions on the video translate the hook, although I could have sworn "Zoo Lou" was supposed to be "Zulu" (maybe it's a double-entendre?).

Mixtape: Chiraq Drillinois

UGK's "Take It Off," from The Corruptor soundtrack, remains one of UGK's great, underrated singles. Producer Juice on the Track wed Pimp C's lyrics to a sample from Lou Bond's "To the Establishment," the same loop flipped for Starlito's acclaimed "Alright." The song is perhaps Louie's best stripper anthem (hold tight, though). "With my 'D' in her 'M,' that's my dick in her mouth/Flick my Bic, flame up loud, that's what pimpin' about."

Mixtape: Chiraq Drillinois

Not to be confused with "My Niggaz," his recent single from Drilluminati, this earlier track from Chiraq Drillinois became one of the rapper's most quotable tracks if only for its opening lines: "Roll up the dope/Where the bitches at?" not only became a locally-viral catchphrase but spawned later Louie tracks as well.

Mixtape: Hardbody The Mixtape

Shot during Dro Day, a celebration of the life of a former resident of the rapper's neighborhood who had been killed, the "Gumbo Mobsters" video was described in-depth by videographer DGainz in our extensive interview with him. "After I recorded it he was like, 'Can you make this look like Paid In Full, when they was all outside getting it cracking?' I was like, yeah, I can try to get that look. And that's how I tried to do it."

"Gumbo Mobsters" is archetypal street Louie, with rugged threats and particularly visceral descriptions of the extensive plans his bullets have for the rhetorical target, even in the chorus: "Bullets go through heads/Motherfuck the Feds." The production, with its stuttering kick drums, chopped horns, and the strange melodic element that shifts in over certain portions of the song, is disorienting, as if making the listener feel that they were on dangerous alien terrain.

Mixtape: Hardbody The Mixtape

“Money Dance” was another team-up with videographer DGainz, shortly after the duo released the “Gumbo Mobsters” video. Both this track and “Gumbo Mobsters” came from King Louie’s Hardbody The Mixtape, his strongest tape up until the recent release of Drilluminati. It included some of the most diverse production on a Louie tape to that point, from “Gumbo Mobsters” chaotic war cry to the smooth melodicism of “Smokin’ Dope.”

The “Money Dance” beat was its own animal, with production that sounds at once like a tribal war cry and a starship’s red alert, helped make the song into one of the signature anthems of the drill movement, due in part to its sparse, harsh sonic template. DGainz didn’t just shoot the video, but produced the beat as well. Gaines describe shooting the video in our interview here.

As a point of reference: The “money dance,” although popularized nationally when Lil Mouse broke into the WorldStar consciousness, is actually a reference to “Dro Style,” a windmill-style dance initially broken locally by Pac Man’s “Dro Style” video. Pac Man, before he was killed in 2010, also coined the scene-defining term “drill,” and was Dro City’s most well-known rapper-resident prior to King Louie.

Mixtape: Hardbody The Mixtape

Like much drill music, there’s a violent undercurrent to much of King Louie’s music. “Walk It Out” is perhaps the most striking example of this, as Unk’s hit song (as referenced in “I’m Arrogant”) is transformed into an anthem of threatened violence: “Call me Lou-Pac/Semi hit ‘em up/Mind been corrupt/Since a young buck.” The catchy buzzsaw synthesizers during the chorus feel like the most perfect possible sonic approximation of the word “drill.”

Mixtape: Hardbody The Mixtape

With percussive, sticky production courtesy beatmaker Chase N Dough, “G-Shit” has a dry, tactile sound, like a deck of cards being shuffled in slow motion. Louie takes advantage of the song’s obstacle course-style beat to let loose a lyrical exercise that balances ruthlessness (“Kick doors, take your pounds”) with the rapper’s casual sense of humor: “I’m a G, boo/All my niggas play rough but when it’s time we GQ.”

Mixtape: #ManUpBandUp Pt. 1

Trust us, we’re not including King Louie’s “Tony Montana” freestyle due to a lack of options; instead, this makes the list for completely remaking the original in his own image. This track is one of the rapper’s most quotable singles, packaging his nonchalant threats and imperturbable-ness with the kind of effortless self-mythologizing all rappers should strive for. “Shoot a big nigga in his chest, tell him die strong,” “Play my shit while I get ink, that’s a tat-tune,” “First they was sleepin’ on me, now Louie coffee,” “They assassinate the great so now I’m drillin’ till they off me.”

Mixtape: The Motion Picture

A local schoolyard drill classic, Shady’s DGainz-produced “Go In” received a big boost from Louie when he remixed the anthemic track and spit an unforgettable, intricate, chorus-free verse that captures his hypnotic flow while somehow building up momentum on every line before suddenly shifting rhyme schemes: “Fix ya hat, get ya gat, if you ain’t with it, keep it straight/My bitches not straight that mean they bi/No story, don’t gotta lie/Kush still too strong, so you know I’m riding high.”

Mixtape: The Motion Picture

With the release of the C-Sick-produced “Bars,” Louie created the most dramatic example of how his rap style was innovative and fresh in a world of imitators and emulators. Again, he locked into a unique flow and found that the limitation of one pattern actually created a space for even more creativity, as he built variations upon it. The beat, with its steadily-building metallic timbres, perfectly complemented Louie’s circle rap style, which seemed to build up in intensity in a never-ending loop of increasing pressure.

Every line on “Bars” felt like it could be turned into a hook, which was ironic because the song had none. Seeing a performance of this track live in Chicago last spring was revelatory; the entire audience seemed to have the song memorized line-for-line: “I’m so high in the clouds, every day’s a vacation/Niggas say they get money?/Spin, heavy rotation!”

Mixtape: Showtime

Louie’s style has always been more about laid-back, in the pocket rapping, rather than the more melodic styles of his contemporaries (Keef, Durk). He’s proven more effective with dense lyricism, rather than tunefulness, but the tension created by melody on “Hitta Shit” was an example of how his songs could gain from the occasional indulgence. There’s a weight to dramatic undercurrent of “Hitta Shit” that builds climatically to one line: “You don’t hear a sound/Just a couple whistles, and it’s man down.”

Mixtape: Drilluminati

One gets the impression, based on how long it took for this song to be unveiled, that Louie's team thought this song would have a bigger impact than it did. And the song still feels like a massive hit in an alternate universe. Tragically, the accompanying video never took advantage of the real story behind the song—King Louie had invented a dance to the C-Sick beat, modeled off of the hilarious moves of WWF wrestler Val Venis (see his classic entrance video here.) That said, the song was hailed as an immediate classic, transformed “Littledidtheyknow” into a catchphrase, and remains Lou’s signature song.

Mixtape: Drilluminati

With its smooth, evocative sheen, “My Hoes They Do Drugs”—co-produced by longtime Chicago rapper, occasional punchline, and overall success story Yung Berg—is one of Louie’s most memorable tracks. The production’s elegant nighttime glossiness is reminiscent of the classic Suave House production style, while Juicy J’s guest verse is a perfect match for the material. (While the same can’t be said about Pusha, his spot was definitely a profile boost for Louie, and can be forgiven on those grounds).

One of Louie’s great talents is the ability to find new creative ground in familiar subject matter. Many of his best songs are built by working within limitations, rather than against them; rules seem to make him more creative, as if giving him a framework to play with. There’s an intellectual restlessness to his lyrics, and the inherent tension between that and his seeming nonchalance makes his verses more electric.

Mixtape: Drilluminati

"Bada-boom, bada-bing/Ballin' like I got a ring..." "Band Nation," from Louie's tape Drilluminati, is one of his best tracks. Its skeletal, bleeping structure, created by the Nez and Rio production duo, presages "New Slaves" as much as Kanye's own "Clique." Louie's flow locks on, and as usual, leaves no prisoners, dropping quotable lines in an unconventional pattern that becomes so hypnotic you almost don't realize how clever what you're hearing really is: "Cars we cop just to crash/Married to the money so I guess relationships do last/Not in the car, it's on me, in my pocket is the new stash/You can think I don't, but I do blast."