MUSIC MUSIC Remembering Chinx, Another Rapper Gone Too Soon 6K 18 Remembering Chinx, Another Rapper Gone Too Soon

Last night, hip-hop lost another rapper to the streets. Lionel "Chinx" Pickenswas shot and killed in Queens, New York. He was 31 years old.

Chinx was one of the many rappers who wanted to leave the tumultuous street life of Far Rockaway, Queens, and flourish as a superstar in hip-hop. While he ended up becoming a visible member of French Montana’s Coke Boys crew, Chinx’s early beginnings were with a group called Riot Squad. “That’s where I started out. 

Me, Bino, Cau2Gs, and Stack Bundles,” he once told me in an interview for XXL. Back in high school, he was rapping for fun with his friends—one of them being his childhood homie Stacks—and started taking it seriously when his mixtapes were getting positive responses from the neighborhood. Along with his boys, they formed Riot Squad and began building a buzz as a unit until Chinx was locked up for nearly five years at Mid-State Correctional Facility for robbery and drug charges.

When he was released in 2008, Bundles was gone. He was gunned down a year before, and Chinx learned about losing his friend while he was still locked up.

Instead of being discouraged, it motivated him to make it in hip-hop. Hitting up the block again, Chinx built his buzz through a series of Riot Squad releases—Hurry Up and Die Vol. 1, Vol. 2, and Vol. 3—before associating himself with another rapper on the rise: French Montana. “When I got incarcerated, Jim Joneswanted to work with Stack. So, they formed a crew called the Byrd Gang, which was Stack Bundles, Max B, and Jim Jones,” he said in the same XXL interview of transitioning from Riot Squad to Coke Boys. “So when I came home, Stack passed away and Max B was still home fighting his murder case and shit. Max B sought after me. One of his homies saw me in the club when I went to see Max. Stack knew Max and Max knew French. That’s how I met French, at Max B’s house. Max B is serving 75 years now, but me and French just continued to keep working. That’s how we formed the Coke Boys and just kept banging.”

Chinx was often added as a guest appearance on Montana’s mixtapes, differentiating himself from Flip, Cheeze, Charlie Rock, and the rest with his honest rhymes about the harsh situations he’d seen coming up. When Chinx signed to Coke Boys in 2011, he started to build his own foundation outside of Montana’s shadow with his Harry Fraud-produced Flight 2011 (a tape he stated was a proper introduction to his catalog) and his now respected mixtape series,Cocaine Riot. “Street Superhero” is still my theme music.

His slow road to fame kicked into high gear when Montana took him on Drake’s Club Paradise Tour in 2012. During this time, fans saw him come into his own when he was prominently featured on Coke Boys 3. After that tape dropped, he followed up with his biggest single to date, “I’m a Coke Boy,” which was the de facto Coke Boys anthem, off Cocaine Riot 2. The success of the street record spawned a major remix with Diddy, Rick Ross, and his mentor, Montana. Sequential releases in 2013 and 2014—Cocaine Riot 3 and Coke Boys 4—saw Chinx as the seasoned veteran in Coke Boys as new members came along. 

I met Chinx back in 2013 during my time at XXL. He was promoting a new marketable image, where he was literally wiping away the “Drugz” part of his name and just going by his mononym, Chinx. He was gearing up to release his I’ll Take It From Here EP, which contained his regional smash “Feelings.” After our initial interview, I heard his EP at a private listening session held at Bellucci Napoli in Midtown Manhattan, where I witnessed first-hand a different side of him gaining acceptance in the mainstream. Coke Boys (minus French, who was out of town at the time) came through to show their support. It was cool and sleek, but he still carried a tough persona that catered to his day-one fans. 

To me, Chinx was a genuine person who knew the perfect balance of professionalism and friendship. We kept in touch over the next couple of years, texting each other to talk about things we were working on and just to say what’s up. I always want to co-sign artists I really believe in, and Chinx was one of them, a talented, humble guy who would hit you up just to say thanks. “Yo E thank u for comin out brother. I appreciate that look wit u there,” he texted to me after his Cocaine Riot 4 listening.

My most recent encounter with him was at Up & Down last April. Ja Rule was billed to make an appearance. A lot of dope people were there. Randomly, I ran into Chinx and his manager, Biggs, and we exchanged contacts because he got a new number. If you really knew Chinx, he was all about calling his boys “fools.” When we greeted each other with that, I knew we reached a level where it was friends first and business second. Just like the many others who paid homage to Chinx after hearing of his death today, I will forever remember his contributions to the game.

Rest in peace, fool. Gone but not forgotten.

Eric Diep is a writer living in New York. Follow him @E_Diep.

Amber Rose Puts Kanye On Blast, Say Travi$ Scott Writes His Raps

The Shade Is Real

Amber Rose was feeling particularly salty about one of her ex-flings earlier this week, when she was partying at the Supper Club in Los Angeles. No, it wasn't Wiz Khalifa who she recently separated from, but Kanye West.

 Rose got up on stage and grabbed the microphone from the host, to complain about the music being played. "Stop playing n****s I used to fuck, stop, stop. Why don't we play the n***a who writes his songs for the other n***a: Travi$ Scott. Let's go. He writes his songs for the other n***a, let's go." Towards the end of the video, the host addresses Scott, who was apparently as confused as the rest of the crowd. It is unclear if this was another shot fired in the ongoing Kardashian family-Amber Rose feud. 

Artist To Watch in 2015 #12 Raury (That Cigarette Song is Fire Tho)

RAURY

  

One of the stars of Atlanta's new class of hip-hop renaissancemen alongside ILoveMakonnen and OG Maco, Raury was turning heads before graduating high school and gained a devoted following with the release of his first independent album, Indigo Child. Singles like "God's Whisper" have earned co-signs by Lorde, who asked him to contribute to the Hunger Games: 

Mockingjay soundtrack, and Andre 3000, who had Raury open for Outkast at one of their Atlanta homecoming show in September.

With a forward-thinking approach and a ton of confidence ("I'm going to say it, I'm going to be one of the greatest lyricists out here," he told Billboard in March), Raury will get a leg up in 2015 through a fresh Columbia Records deal and (hopefully) deliver an eclectic major-label debut.

2015 Artist To Watch #13 Dave East (Signed by NAS and straight out of Harlem)

Signed by Nas and under the RocNation brand Dave East looks like somebody that is going to make waves in the music industry.

Like Puff Daddy once famously declared, "Its a h*** up in Harlem," and hailing from those harrowing Uptown blocks— East Harlem to be exact— is local hero Dave East. 

Standing at 6’5” with a gruff-voice to match, the fiery MC went from NBA hopeful to one of the Big Apple’s top rising talents. And while the former gig would've been a cool look for the former athlete, the latter was, and always has been, where he knew he belonged. “I always was rapping but was just joking around, he recalls while sitting with REVOLT. 

 "I used to write rewrite Ma$e records, listen to Jay Z and rewrite their songs. I was [also] playing ball [at the time], I had two scholarships and went to school and all that to play basketball, but I always loved rap." Once he decided to move past the idea of playing ball, all signs pointed towards his passion: hip-hop. 

Fast forward to earlier this summer, when after exciting the streets with a string of freestyles, including notable joints like “Chi-Raq” and “Warm It Up,” the East Harlem brought everything full circle with the release of his free album, Black Rose. Spanning 15 tracks, with production from the likes of Rico Beats (“Red Bottoms”) to Sean C LV (“The Town”), the free album details Dave’s stark reality, one that he wears on his sleeve and brilliantly details through rhyme.  Pensive lyrics on tracks like “Around Here” and “Free Charlie” paint those pictures perfectly, and they're the reason why Dave considers himself as the Black Rose of his city.

“Black Rose, I feel like there’s a cloud over the East side, just the ghettos in general, I feel like I’m a rose trying to get up out of that.” Doing so through rhyme, the rhymer is by far one of the city’s brightest and if you need any proof look no further than Black Rose, which oozes with New York flavor. 

Why Does Everybody Hate Jay Z?

There’s no going back once you out yourself as aJay Z Jaÿ-Z Stan. From then on, any time you defend the man who’s grown to become one of the game’s most divisive figures, you’re dismissed for having a bias rooted in fandom, no matter how valid your points. And yet, despite that, here I am, defending, because oh boy, this Tidal shit is getting out of hand.

Fam is a musician who owns his own music label, owns his masters, and now owns a service to stream all of that music. A streaming service that, from a consumer-facing view, is not much unlike its greatest rival Spotify. Sure, there's a $20-per-month subscription fee for those who want to hear hi-fi audio, but for everyone else there's a tier that streams music at 320kbps for $9.99 per month, the same as Spotify's "premium" tier. Does it suck that there's no free option? Sure, but, #FirstWorldProblems. Despite all of that, here we are at peak Jay Z schadenfreude. If Hov fails, he fails, and while it wouldn’t be his first it would be one of his biggest. But this all reads as deeper than just reacting to the hilarity of his awesomely tone deaf press conference and rollout, which I myself even took part in. Take a peek at The Twitter™ and the wealth of Hot Takes steadily populating the ‘net: there’s an active interest in watching Jay Z fail.

It’s crazy how many old Jay bars, be they peak era or more recent, remain relevant to his life today. But few lines are as incidentally prophetic as the ones he let off on “So Appalled”: 

Dark knight feeling
Die, you be a hero
Or live long enough to see yourself become a villain

Jay Z is the rap game Harvey Dent. His trailblazing two-decade run is no longer a story of glory; he lived long enough to see himself become the villain. How, though? When did Jiggatransform from the living legend we so endearingly sent off to the rafters, the same one we let bounce back after he returned claiming “30 is the new 20” even though he was pushing 40, to the guy whose every business move is met with the utmost dubiousness and cynicism? We rode with him when he boycotted Cristal (even though none of us were actually copping it), only to watch him release his own high-end champagne a few years later. We thought nothing of it when he partnered with Budweiser to sell us his "comeback" album, Kingdom Come. So, when did it become cool to hate Jay Z? The answer lies with Magna Carta Holy Grail and Samsung. Apparently Hov having a billion-dollar corporation bankroll his 12th album was the straw that broke the camel's back. No pun intended. 

But why shouldn’t Jay Z aspire to keep growing his fortune? He's been upfront about his goals from the start. He told us as much when he said he’s in the “race to a billion with his face to the ceiling/knees on the floor, please Lord, forgive him.” But did he actually sell his soul? In the much-maligned Samsung move, dude actually says in the commercial, “we’ll put it out at one time then everyone will share it.” Read into that how you please, but it sounded as if he didn't care if it was illegally shared. Would it have been nice if Jay did the B-Sides concert just for the fuck of it? Sure. But, really, what’s the difference between copping concert tickets and dropping $10-20 for a membership you can cancel at your own leisure? The truth is Jay Z is a master at doing both—satisfying his fans while maximizing his revenue. 

And all his Cash Kings peers are doing the same with much less of the backlash. No one slams Puff and Ciroc the same way eyes rolled at Jay’s perfectly fine D’usse name-drop in "Drunk in Love." People weren't wildin' out when Dr. Dre partnered with Jimmy Iovine to sell people $300 headphones. If you want to do a one-to-one analogy, what about Beats Music? It has no free tier, no desktop or web app, and doesn't even offer artist exclusives like Jigga's does.

The truth is, Jay Z isn’t so far from the oh-so championed rebel spirit of Kanye West. He’s just more corporate minded. Albums leak in advance like clockwork? Well, he’ll gas a phone company to give him his platinum plaque in advance and still go gold off physicals the first week. Streaming is the new game? Fuck playing by the pre-set rules, he’ll make his own. The business might not take off in its first 30 days because—shocker!—most don’t. For whatever reason, President Carter’s approval numbers are down. Is it because, as Kanye said last year, with him you usually see the win? Unlike his little brother, he doesn't wear his heart on his sleeve. He rarely does interviews, rarely uses his live shows to express his mind and frustrations. He comes off, to some, as cold and calculating.​ Even when he does try to engage, he's met with mockery. Just take a look at last week's #TidalFacts tweet-spree.

To quote the "Grammy Family" freestyle, “Build me up, break me down, build me up again.” His back’s against the wall. New A-list rappers are maximizing the shine. “They” don’t love him no more. The last year made Jay Z face the closest thing to adversity since who knows when. Shit, with so much riding against him, we may be in for a truly great album. Maybe that's what he needs to regain the people: an undeniable body of work, not just an enjoyable B album (though I will defend MCHG forever). But whether through music or some other stunt, at this point it’s beyond foolish to count Jigga out. He told you his own mythology in advance 19 years ago, “I’ll tell you half the story, the rest, you fill it in. As long as the villain wins.” But here's hoping he can reclaim the superhero mantle along with whatever trophies await.