Steve 'Flash' JuonFake Shore Drive is a lot of different things. It’s a Chicagoland blog (the name references the famous Lake Shore Drive), it’s a place for regional rappers to blow up, and it’s also a publishing imprint for albums like Joey Purp & Thelonious Martin’s “Champagne Seats.” The latter is the biggest risk of the bunch. Blogs are a dime a dozen — some carve out a niche (I miss OhWord) and some disappear quietly. Aspiring rappers are even more plentiful than that, especially in an economy that leaves people with nothing but a dollar and a dream, only the dollar got spent on rent long ago. Putting your stake on turning a blog about local adventures and aspiring rappers into a label that publishes them is either the height of insanity or the boldest of statements about making a difference in the future of hip-hop.
Being that Joey Purp is a true Chicagoan I’m a bit surprised he wanted to “Make the Lakers” instead of the Bulls. I’ve got nothing personal against them, but any time it’s come down to Bulls vs. Lakers I’ve always sided with the Chi, and I don’t even live there. I just feel some type of way about Chicago — I’ve been cheering for the Cubs, Bears and Bulls since I was tall enough to change the dial on a television. You probably only hear about the crime rate or (these days) the drill rap, but I think of the resilience of The City of Big Shoulders and the people in it. I think of good food, great people, and HEART. You hear a lot of that heart in Joey Purp’s raps on songs like the mellow “Don’t Take It Personal.”
Joey’s name might suggest a rapper more interested in sipping lean than writing bars, but this and his other songs prove that notion wrong. “Sometimes you gotta stop playing, put the game down.” He’s thinking his way through life and applying perspective to his pen in the process. He’s well met in this pursuit by Thelonious Martin, a producer who channels the energy of early Kanye West without the narcissistic bipolar ego (or not yet anyway). When Purp flips up his style for rapid lyrical couplets on “I Came I Seen,” Martin adjusts the beat and the tempo to match, and the two become a natural fit like Pete Rock & CL Smooth.
If I have one complaint about “Champagne Seats” it’s that it’s too damn short. I know I’m showing my age when I grouse that rappers release albums that are only 15 minutes long, but Fake Shore Drive clearly knew that they had something good enough with Purp & Martin to take a chance on it and become the driving force pushing it to the market. I’m giving them credit for that because this is the kind of rap music that can revitalize and grow the scene — not just in Chicago but in the United States and even abroad. We need more rap music that’s aspirational. Not “aspirational” as in “the accumulation of wealth and materialistic things” but “aspirational” as it “aspiring to make songs that are artistically meaningful and personally relatable.” Joey and Thelonious succeed in this aspiration.