J Bambii Delivers the Performance of Her Life (Real Recap)
photo courtesy of Luciana Salinas
Whether it’s an impromptu speech at Soho House about living in the moment or a verse bashing colorism and Western beauty standards, Chicago rapper, event curator and tarot reader J Bambii aka @oprah_gucci somehow always finds the right words.
J Bambii’s performance at Sleeping Village Saturday night was triumphant, a beautiful accumulation of nearly a decade of rapping. In between songs, she reflected on her journey, explaining how tarot reading inspired her to write her first song, reminiscing on early recording sessions with Solar Five and revealing that she recently experienced homelessness and only told a select few about it.
Rapping and singing her way through what we believe is the entirety of her debut album BLACK AMERICAN BEAUTY, J Bambii showed the packed-out Sleeping Village crowd the raw power of her voice all evening, accompanied by a stellar 4-piece band and Renzell holding it down on the decks. The album still doesn’t have a release date—J Bambii prefers to go at her own pace and won’t half ass anything—but we’re already considering it one of our most highly anticipated albums of 2025.
The revival of Adamn Killa (Real Recap)
Say what you will about Adamn Killa but we should be talking more about his resurgence in 2024.
After publicly falling out with former collaborators Drain Gang and spending $20,000 on a Lil Uzi Vert feature that Uzi refused to clear, no one would have blamed the Chicago native for calling it quits with music and focusing on providing for his family. But after a brief hiatus, he’s stormed back into relevance this year by any means necessary, whether it’s a string of free shows at local high schools, battling to get to the top ranking on Cameo and delivering an endless stretch of social media posts with raunchy captions. Most importantly, he’s making catchy music that people are resonating with and you can tell that he truly cares about his fanbase.
On Saturday night, Adamn could see that his work paid off. While Subterranean was far from full, nearly all of the 75-100 fans who showed up were die-hards, battling to get to the front, rapping along to several of his new songs and racing to the merch line once he announced he’d be taking pictures with everyone after the show.
If Adamn keeps this up, he could be in store for an even bigger 2025. We’ll be watching closely.
femdot. Gives Back to Fans with “The 94 Cent Show” (Real Recap)
The seasoned Chicago rapper charged 94 cents for tickets and let fans pick the set list.
Flyer for "The 94 Cent Show" designed by Ruben Rodriguez
Unquestionably one of the most skilled rappers the city has to offer, Chicago MC femdot. has been releasing music for over a decade, earning the respect of the city many times over with a potent pen. But it was his 2019 single “94 Camry Music”—and the album of the same title—that propelled him to new heights. The single has amassed over 25 million streams on Spotify alone and since its release, femdot. has toured across the US; opening for the likes of Saba, tobi lou and redveil and recently competing his first headline tour.
Last year, femdot. played his biggest headline show of his career, at Chicago’s 750-capacity Thalia Hall. But the five year anniversary show for the ‘94 Camry Music’ album went in a more intimate, fan-forward direction, taking place at the 215-cap Schuba’s Tavern. Tickets were sold for a cool 94 cents. The cherry on top? The setlist was fully curated by ticket holders.
The show sold out in 4 hours.
A good chunk of the “94 Cent Show” setlist came from the recent “Free Samples” series but some tracks required a deeper dive into the vault. He noted that it had been years since he had performed certain tracks, such as 2014 cut “Crossroads,” which he prefaced by asserting “this is how people found out I could tell a story.” On the song, Femi paints a picture of himself getting wrapped up in selling drugs in high school, before pulling the curtain away to reveal that this was all what COULD have happened. “I could have sold dope / But I’d rather slang this hope,” he chants on the empowering chorus.
Midway through the show, something special happened that the crowd won’t soon forget. femdot. paused the music to invite two of his biggest fans onstage, Danny and Erica. He told the crowd that the couple has been fans of his for seven years, and had been to seven of his shows.
Fem passed the mic to Danny to “say a few words,” and after a brief buildup, Danny proposed to Erica, who gleefully accepted. You can watch the clip on our Instagram HERE.
After the fan selections, it was time for the main event: a front-to-back performance of the 94 Camry Music album. (I’d recommend checking out “Snuck to Matty’s” for more prolific storytelling.) He planned to close with 2019 single “Dilla Back” but chants for an encore resulted in one final performance of his biggest track to date, a fitting button on the evening.
Fans can pre-order the 94 Camry Music 5-year anniversary vinyl HERE.
CONCERT PREVIEW: KNEECAP Keeps the Irish Gaelic Language and Hip-Hop’s Radical Roots Alive
The irish hip-hop group is set to headline Concord Music Hall this Friday, September 27.
A few weeks ago, a couple friends and I decided to go to the movies to check out a film called KNEECAP just based off a recommendation and not knowing what to expect.
Set in Belfast, Ireland, the movie follows the (dramatized) origin story of its eponymous hip-hop trio comprised of two lifelong best friends/drυg dealers/aspiring rappers named Móglaí Bap and Mo Chara, linking up with a high school music teacher who ends up becoming their producer named DJ Provaí. What makes KNEECAP as a collective unique is that they choose to primarily rap in their Indigenous Irish language, which is considered an endangered language, and according to statistics, is only spoken by about ~6000 people living in occupied Northern Ireland.
As a quick history lesson, the United Kingdom has claimed Northern Ireland as part of its territory for over 800 years, despite the fact that, geographically, Northern Ireland is a part of the rest of Ireland. Sound familiar? It even reached a point from the 1960s-late 90s known as “The Troubles” where a guerilla war campaign was waged by the Irish Republican Army against British forces. To add additional context, one of the key subplots of the film revolves around the fact that the Native Irish people are organizing a massive protest just to have their language become officially recognized by the government, and then here comes this controversial rap group passing out free drυgs at their concerts and mooning their audience just to spite the British, all whilst incorporating themes of political rebellion and anti-imperialism in their songs— “Every word of Irish spoken is a bullet fired for Irish freedom.”
To be honest, I had no idea KNEECAP was a real, active group before watching their movie (did I mention that they also acted flawlessly in it as themselves?), but their story was so enthralling and ridiculously absurd that I found myself going down the rabbit hole of their lore. Now I’m dedicated to becoming their biggest American advocate.
Kneecap | Photo: Sarah Ellis for The Face
Earlier, I mentioned that approximately 6,000 people living in occupied Northern Ireland speak the Irish language, yet KNEECAP’s monthly listeners exceed 332,000 (and that’s just on Spotify). I personally believe that the revolutionary tongue is universally understood by all people living under oppressive regimes, whether its the British monarchy in Ireland, the fascist two-party system in the United States, or the apartheid state occupying Palestine. The members of KNEECAP are very well-aware of this fact as people who grew up under occupation, and as an act of solidarity with Palestinians, they pulled out of playing at SXSW this year due to the festival’s partnerships with the U.S. military and weapons manufacturers.
Sonically, their music consists of a blend of retro boom-bap production (listen to “AMACH ANOCHT” and “C.E.A.R.T.A.”) and electronic music (check out “Sick In The Head” and “Get Your Brits Out,”) so even if you can't quite make out the lyrics, you can at least bob your head to the beats.
In June of this summer, KNEECAP released their latest album Fine Art, and even if you find yourself struggling with understanding the content of their lyrics, just remember that a wise man once said: “no one knows what it means, but it’s provocative.” Well, if advocating for the liberation from tyrannical governments (and the occasional drυg trip) is wrong, then I don’t wanna be right.
Free Northern Ireland, Free Palestine, Free Puerto Rico, and free all political prisoners around the globe.
Kneecap will play their first ever Chicago show at Concord Music Hall this Friday, September 27. Tickets are sold out.