Chi-Rap, 1989-2016 EP

Homecoming focuses on the artist coming of age and stardom in the early 2000’s. Named homecoming the main theme of this section is the rise in prison population and mass incarceration due to factors involving the 1994 crime bill and the continued war on poverty & drugs sending African Americans to prisons at alarming rates. Furthermore, Homecoming alludes to the expenditure of rap to include cities not on the coast Chicago, Atlanta just to name two. In this expansion, the heights that Common, Twista, Kayne West, and Lupe Fiasco reached solidified Chicago’s place in hip-hop history in not on being a part but in bringing innovation to the hip-hop game.

 

These years also correspond with the political rise on the national scene of President Barak Obama starting his political career organizing communities in the Chicago projects. Homes like the Robert Taylor Homes, Princeton Park Homes and Cabrini Greens who actual get demolished during this time to make way for gentrified lofts  become destroyed homes for low income tenants. These homes are mentioned more in the next generation but posing the question of what effects gentrification and the reduction of public housing has done to increase gun violence and territory wars. Other political players in Chicago including Kayne West and his "Kayne moments" (Bush and Swift) where the Chicago son calls out the president and the music industry for their racism respectively and then the mayors and activists and organizations of the city.

 

Though Second Coming seems like it refers to Yeezus himself. It actually has to do with the second mayor Daley who was in power during this time along with the second wave of Chicago Hip-Hop.

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Finally, Homecoming deals with spirituality and the struggles of living in the urban crisis of Chicago through various motifs such as food deserts, and the store front churches, liquor store confluence plaguing the areas of the city. It is for this reason why Chance the Rapper is more so transposed into this section and not during the period where all his music comes out.