Derecho what? When Chicago it-rapper Chief Keef came to town to headline at DC Star with native son Fat Trel, the straight-line windstorm from the night before had done just enough damage to warrant a last-minute cancellation of the show. Instead, the pair spent the weekend around the area, shooting a music video all over Northeast, logging marathon studio sessions in Alexandria, and of course making the obligatory visit to glitzy titty bar Stadium.
Among the things the two kindred spirits bonded over (I tagged along for a few hours): how to safely navigate Twitter groupies, the uncomfortableness of shirts, and a mutual distaste for both Federales and D.C. rapper Shy Glizzy. (“Trel and Glizzy know where [the beef] comes from,” Shy Glizzy manager Benny T told Arts Desk in June. “[The beef], that’s between them two alone.”)
Thankfully for all of us, the latter isn’t really an issue anymore.
As per usual, Wale took to Twitter earlier this month to announce that any beef that still existed between the three (Fat Trel was dropped from Wale’s Board of Administration last year) was squashed when Wale, flexing his D.C. cred, mediated a detente between Trel and Glizzy with a series of phone calls, and subsequently announced that new tracks featuring all three of them—-Wale, Shy Glizzy, and Fat Trel—-were on the way. The details of the mopped up bad blood, however, remain mysterious.
As for Trel and Keef: Their derecho weekend looks like it was productive.
“Fukkk the Feds” is the second time Keef, Trel, and producer Lex Luger all meet on one track, and it’s the first release from that joint session back in June. It has the familiar aggro-flexing feel for which Luger’s come to be known, but continues the beatmaker’s subtle move away from his signature industrial-synths sound. There really isn’t anyone else pulling this much flex from Luger’s harder side as Trel and Keef are today. It helps that they do kind of sound like friends rapping together, a good reason to look forward to more collaborations. But on beats like these, where Keef and other street rappers are comfortable spitting over rolling licks and bellowing horns, Trel doesn’t just sound right, he raps raps. But given local leanings, was there ever much chance for a street rapper to come out of D.C. and not be technically respectable?
As for Keef vs. Glizzy: Still no word on any pending Fendi beatings.
Photo by Carlos Perez