Lil Herb, 20-year-old rapper from the Eastside of Chicago grows up witnessing drug activity, gun violence, and police brutality. Just like most of the other youth that grow up in the projects, Herb starts off so innocent, but not at all unaware of what goes on in the hood. At 13 he is able to maintain his focus on his school books, and playing basketball, not worried at all about hanging out by a corner store or in a trap house. It was when he turns 15 when he starts participating in the street acts.

A few years later, Herb starts to get into writing music, mostly for the fun of it, probably as an alternative route to keep him out of the streets and into more positive and productive activities. After plenty of time of playing around with beats and throwing words of meaning onto them, Herb has a few tracks that are loaded onto YouTube and get plenty of recognition, much more than he expected. His biggest hit that sent him on his way, “Kill S**t” featuring another artist out of the Eastside of Chicago, Lil Bibby, Herbs right-hand man. As soon as the hit took off, and the two artist were getting called in for meetings and collaborations, immediately, they both see their ticket out of the slums in Chicago, and into the music industry where the money is.

Now, Herb has been in the rap game for a little while. He has had time to learn the ways of producers and how tricky the people in the game can be. However, coming from a place like Herb, he has the advantage of already knowing how messed up people can be. The game he was playing was much more grimy and dangerous than the industry. Going through what he went through, taught him to keep his eyes open, and watch out for the people trying to get him. I didn’t have to be in his situation to know that. I grew up a very nice person, people took my kindness for weakness and they figured they would always be able to get over on me. But one thing I like about Herb that makes him sort of like me, is that even though a lot of people betrayed him, especially the ones he loved most, he refuses to let that make him a bitter person. I could say that I am the same way.

I used to say that Lil Herb was my favorite rapper out of Chicago, but now I feel like he is my favorite rapper. I listen to Herb more than any other rapper, mainly because I relate to Herb more than I do any other rapper. I like to listen to Herb whenever I get angry, because it turns my anger into passion. I often play his music based off how I’m feeling. All of his song have meanings, I can normally predict the mood of the song by the way the beat sounds or sometimes even just by the title. For example, my favorite song by Herb is “4 Minutes of Hell Part 3”. As soon as the song comes on, I can easily make the prediction that the song is going to be deep, real, raw, and passionate, just from hearing the beat. That’s one of the main reasons he is my favorite artist, because he is passionate about what he’s saying. Herb projects his voice in a way where it really catches the listener’s attention, therefore you couldn’t possibly be bored listening to him.