Tyler, the Creator<\/a>, No Rest for The Wicked lands as a formidable entry into the storied lexicon of West Coast rap albums. Across the 14-track set, Chike packs in the magnetic braggadocio of his independent work with a new level of introspection and vulnerability as he explores fractured familial relationships and the sinister underbelly of his relentless grind to the top.<\/p>\n\n\t\u201cThis is me carving my way into hip-hop history,\u201d he says. \u201cWest Coast and party music got me money, got me signed and showed me the ropes, so I\u2019ll never discredit that s\u2014t. But I\u2019m on some whole other s\u2014t. I\u2019m in the f\u2014king room with Kendrick [Lamar]; I cannot not be great! I\u2019m in the f\u2014king room with Tyler, [the Creator] and [ScHoolboy] Q. I have to be phenomenal. I have to get vulnerable and [use melody].\u00a0 I have to give a piece of me.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tChike didn\u2019t rush out an album to meet the immediate hype of \u201cPeekaboo,\u201d but every song he\u2019s dropped since has always arrived alongside a music video. \u201cLook Like My Mama,\u201d one of two Tyler, the Creator collaborations on the album, dropped with a music video spoofing classic movies like Napoleon Dynamite, Sinners, and Men in Black.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u00a0With Tyler gifting him beats, verses and video concepts, and Sounwave and K.Dot assisting on sequencing, Chike has been coronated by the West\u2019s reigning hip-hop tastemakers. And he doesn\u2019t spend No Rest for The Wicked resting on those laurels; he delivers some of the year\u2019s most voracious rapping, and he prioritizes continuity in his verses as much as he does the overall listening experience.<\/p>\n
\n\tArmed with one of the year\u2019s most impressive rap LPs and a headlining tour kicking off at Houston\u2019s White Oak Music Hall on Oct. 5, Chike is preparing to work this album for the next few months \u2014 including a forthcoming deluxe edition.<\/p>\n
\n\tBelow, Billboard\u2019s Hip-Hop Up-And-Comer for September talks about the origins of AZ Cult, why he can\u2019t get enough of Jill Scott\u2019s new album, and his reflections on his battle with Joey Bada$$ last year.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\n\tWhat\u2019s your earliest music memory?<\/p>\n
\n\t[Lil Wayne\u2019s] Tha Carter. My mom was a tomboy; she was a dope boy for real, and she loved that album. She can still spit \u201cCash Money Millionaires.\u201d Wayne was my real introduction to music, and from there it was [50 Cent\u2019s] Get Rich or Die Tryin\u2019.<\/p>\n
\n\tThe first album I made my mom buy for me was Chris Brown\u2019s [self-titled] debut album. I used to play that s\u2014t on my SpongeBob radio. It was serious! The first verse I remember being [obsessed with] was Ice Cube\u2019s on \u201cHello\u201d when N.W.A got back together. He was going crazy.<\/p>\n
\n\tWhat do you remember about the very first verse you tried to write by yourself?<\/p>\n
\n\tThis was fresh out the jerking era, and my homies had a recording studio at somebody\u2019s house. I wrote my verse, and in my head, it was the hardest s\u2014t. I don\u2019t even know how long it was, and \u00a0I didn\u2019t even know the format of a verse. But I got up there and started rapping. I was sweating bullets all down my side profile, and everybody could see me. [Laughs.]<\/p>\n
\n\tWhat would you consider to be your first hit locally? \u201cBurn Rubber Again?\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cBurn Rubber\u201d for sure. But before that, the first joint that got people looking at me was a song called \u201cMotion.\u201d I been talking about motion since 2016, n\u2014a! It\u2019s probably still out there. That was my first real music video. My boy AZ Kilo was going to prison for a year, and he spent his last day with us. I told him, \u201cWhen you get out of jail, I\u2019m gonna have this s\u2014t going.\u201d When he got out of jail, \u201cBurn Rubber Again\u201d was out.<\/p>\n
\n\tTalk to me a little bit more about the AZ Cult era. When did you decide to pursue music as a full-time career?<\/p>\n
\n\tI was trying to be creative. Everybody had a \u201cgang\u201d or a \u201ccrew,\u201d and I wanted a cult fan base, so I went with AZ Cult. Now, people be looking at me with the side eye for it. It was about 10 of us with AZ in front of our names. I got AZ tatted between my index and pinky fingers at 14.<\/p>\n
\n\tWhy AZ?<\/p>\n
\n\tBack then, we was conscious rappers. AZ is the beginning and end, the alpha and omega and everything in between. At around 17, I made the full transition, finally got a Mac desktop, learned how to engineer and record myself, and uploaded beats to GarageBand. Then I graduated to live performances. I\u2019ve always felt like I was supposed to be someone. I always felt like music was the answer. By 21, I was in full rapper mode, and I dropped \u201cBurn Rubber Again\u201d at 22.<\/p>\n
\n\tWhat was the first beat that caught your ear for No Rest for The Wicked?<\/p>\n
\n\tIronically, the intro song, which is called \u201cMercy.\u201d We did that one from scratch; it wasn\u2019t a beat somebody sent me. It\u2019s a sample of a song called \u201cDeath Have Mercy,\u201d which is an old Black folk song. There\u2019s no beat, just somebody singing like the old Black folks on the porch in the South. I think I heard it in a movie and said, \u201cI gotta sample this.\u201d We\u2019ve done a lot of switching songs on this album, but \u201cMercy\u201d hasn\u2019t moved. It\u2019s always been the first track.<\/p>\n
\n\tHow did that early leak impact the evolution of No Rest for The Wicked?<\/p>\n
\n\tMan, I didn\u2019t know what to do. I was in the booth at the studio when I found out about the leak, and, no lie, I went straight to the bathroom and took a s\u2014t.\u00a0 The reasoning behind [the leak] was so crazy; some dude on a website was like, \u201cOh, I only did it because I don\u2019t like Black people.\u201d I still got the screenshots! A lot of my fans are also fans of Kendrick, and they would hit me up and promise not to listen to the leak. That\u2019s real love. The leak definitely made me feel a way, but I wasn\u2019t desperate because it wasn\u2019t a super known thing.<\/p>\n
\n\tI give all grace to the universe and the energy I was putting out there. I wish I was making this up, but the same week my album got leaked, Tyler FaceTimed me on Thanksgiving. He finally sends me some songs, and a couple of days later, Kendrick texts me to send him the album. I\u2019m like, \u201cYo, what the f\u2014k is happening?!\u201d I even rap about it on my recent feature [on Mark Lux\u2019s \u201cThe Yapper\u201d]. Me and Tyler got back in the studio later that month, and I linked with Kendrick regarding the album for the first time right before New Year\u2019s.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\n\tWhen and how did you land on this title?<\/p>\n
\n\tI had this title before GNX, since September 2024. I made a whole song with that title, but I was talking about myself. And I was okay with that. I was going through so much that year that I was really angry. There was no rest for me.<\/p>\n
\n\tDo you prefer writing or freestyling?<\/p>\n
\n\tI never freestyle. Freestyling is cool for the radio and for shortform content, but I take pride in writing. I gets busy. F\u2014k all that punching in. Don\u2019t get me wrong, all forms of creating need to be exercised. And I\u2019m very good at that too. But if I had to choose, I\u2019m going to write. I enjoy coming up with some crazy s\u2014t, rapping it, and then laughing to myself and continuing to write. I picked up just going in the booth and feeling it from Tyler and Dot, but I still write.<\/p>\n
\n\tMy formula now is to write on my phone at home, and whatever flow words come to mind, I put it down as a reference. Then, I go back, and I fill everything with words. I always seal the deal with written proof. About 95% of this album was written on my phone.<\/p>\n
\n\tWhat verse or song are you most proud of from a writing standpoint?<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cRock Bottom\u201d was phenomenal. I\u2019ve never created a song like that. Those were fresh feelings that I\u2019ve never expressed before. I\u2019m reliving the fact that I don\u2019t have grandparents on my dad\u2019s side or on my mom\u2019s side. I don\u2019t f\u2014k with my mom like that. I\u2019ve always been an outcast because both my little brothers got the same dad, but I love them no differently. In the beginning of the third verse, I say: \u201cI never said s\u2014t was gonna be easy, but I knew it was gonna be worth it\/ I always said I\u2019ll try my best; I never said I was gonna be perfect.\u201d That\u2019s one song I\u2019m happy to hold to my name. If you need to know something about me, go play \u201cRock Bottom.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tWhat was it like working on new music after \u201cPeekaboo\u201d went crazy?<\/p>\n
\n\tI never stopped working. If anything, this is probably the longest I\u2019ve gone without recording. Even when I wasn\u2019t recording, I was in the studio with these greats, and other pieces of my music IQ were going up. We started officially working on No Rest for The Wicked at the end of February 2024. There were some songs that didn\u2019t make it about certain topics I wanted to address, but all\u2019s well that ends well.<\/p>\n
\n\tWhat other parts of your music IQ do you feel have gone up?<\/p>\n
\n\tEvery f\u2014king thing. My lingo, how I speak about music, what I\u2019m hearing when I listen to it, how much I immerse myself into it, knowing the method to the madness. I really picked up that everything\u2019s intentional with the pgLang camp. Dot don\u2019t do nothing willy-nilly. Even when it comes to rap transitions.<\/p>\n
\n\tToday, it\u2019s so easy for rappers to go from random topic to random topic when they rap \u2014 and I was a victim of that too. But when I rap with Dot, he checks me on that. We gotta stay in the same direction; he can go southeast, and I can go northeast, but we\u2019re both going east. If you listen to \u201cLook Like My Mama,\u201d everyone loves the New Balance line because there\u2019s continuity throughout the whole verse.<\/p>\n
\n\tLast year you also hopped into that East-West battle. How did that experience impact your album-making process, if at all?<\/p>\n
\n\tIt didn\u2019t. Shout out to everybody involved, especially Ray Vaughn, who\u2019s a real friend of mine. I\u2019ve never talked to Joey [Bada$$], but that s\u2014t was a good sparring match. If I had to spar with any rapper, I think it\u2019d be him. He\u2019s a great, smart rapper. That s\u2014t was fun, and it definitely made me better. Maybe me and him do chop it up one day. If anything, that experience taught me to take s\u2014t seriously.<\/p>\n
\n\tWho\u2019s left on your list of dream collaborators?<\/p>\n
\n\tDJ Quik, easily. Erykah Badu \u2014 I\u2019m playing her album with The Alchemist right now. It\u2019s so much I want to pull from that album. And Jill Scott! I went to her concert at the YouTube Theater. To Whom This May Concern guided me to finish my album. It gave me mental peace. I cried to \u201c\u00c0\u1e63\u1eb9.\u201d I want to pick Jill\u2019s brain and just have a talk with her. She might make me melt! [Laughs.] I would love to have her go over my music with me. I want to get in the ring with her and see what I can do.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"AZ Chike is done playing \u201cPeekaboo.\u201d The MC born Damaria Kayshawn Walker, 31, may have just wrapped an…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":856956,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[88,3867,216],"class_list":["post-856955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-music","tag-entertainment","tag-genre-hiphop","tag-music"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=856955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/856955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/856956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=856955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=856955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=856955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}