With Fight Club vibes in this music video for OPEN THE GATES, the heaviest hitters of Chicago hip hop make their presence known. MOECYRUS and Novatore of Azthmatix, connect with A.M. Early Morning to create a lyrically raw and gritty hip hop beat. Challenging in their words as they open with their chorus, chanting, “We love to talk shit, this is what we do. Know there’s a big gap that’s in between us and you. We came with AM to slay and bring mayhem.” Each artist spits their lines of braggadocios bars, over an ominous slow beat with a piano progression, and the atmosphere is perfected under dark skies in a graffiti laced alley, on an urban corner in the streets of Chicago, with Yung City Slicka Films editing to emphasize energy. To step up to these fearless three on the mic would be menacing, to say the least!
Chicago’s own hardened rappers, A.M. Early Morning and Johnny Gunnz, release their record, ANIMAL, that should be in the conversations that mention the popular New York gangster trio, Griselda and their debut album on Shady Records. ANIMAL is a seven track project, but it feels like a full record at slightly over eighteen minutes long. It is full of high pitched, sampled female vocal melodies and slow, tight structured bad-ass criminal punchlines. A.M. Early Morning and Johnny Gunnz capture that truly gangster style of rap that has largely been absent from hip hop, with the exception of Pusha T, The Game and now the recent critically acclaimed Griselda Records.
If a hip hop fan thinks of Chicago gangster rap at this very moment, put ANIMAL in the equation. Every record on the album has notable and memorable punchlines such as, “I’ll have Vatos leave your Tahoe on cylinder blocks, you the type to be caught slipping, chilling in crocs,” from Johnny Gunnz on the intro track, TYPICAL produced by Max Julian. A.M. Early Morning raps, “Switching burners like draws or a white tee, problems go away for a small fee, devil in the back working overtime, drug dealers now bums holding up signs,” on the song BODEGA GLASS, featuring Eto, produced by D-Nast On The Beat. Lines like those are what east coast hip hop heads love about the New York trio Griselda, if given the chance to be privy to ANIMAL by AM Early Morning and Johnny Gunnz, they would be instant fans of them as well!
The flow of the project is seamless, including a staple of a hip hop classic record; the skit. Boogie Man is featured scratching some dope cuts on track 4, the BOOGIE MAN SKIT. The complex scratching from Boogie Man offers a transition that is largely missing from new age hip hop today. Don not forget about independent hustlers of amazing quality rap music, and include AM Early Morning and Johnny Gunz in the conversation. Place ANIMAL next to Griselda and Pusha T in your daily hip hop playlist, it deserves shine along the mainstream.
Production by Max Julian, D-Nast On The Beat, Mister Castle, Johnny Slash, Ill Brown, and Boogie Man.
New EZY Era is a Chicago born artist with an enigmatic sound. Raised in the multicultural suburbs of Chicago his sound blends as much as his surroundings.
Gridlock Andy
GridLockAndy is a 22 yr old Music Producer from Chicago. He started his music career at 17 making beats in his spare time from home. Eventually moving to his first music studio in 2013. In the beginning of 2014, he moved to his second music studio which was in the back of a cellphone store where he learned how to audio engineer. Later that same yr he teamed up with Rhymster, Frekwenzy, Z3ndoctor, and Will Balonos to rent I studio room in the highly acclaimed Fort Knox studios where they currently house the Ever Evolved headquarters. A could of yrs later in the the spring of 2016 he release his first beat tape “Is Andy Real?” sporting neo-jazz hip hop tracks that defines his sound.
RhymSter
RhymSter
Julian Rodriguez, aka RhymSter, was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. The interest to take on music didnt catch on until he graduated high school in 2010. Looking back on his past, he realized that all his life his family had exposed him to different genres of music such as 80s-90s Hip Hop, Jazz, Rock, Oldies, Soul, House, R&B, & various types of Spanish music. In a way, he was already preparing himself for what was to come.
Julian was a solo artist for some years building his skills and relationship with fellow partners/producers Frekwenzy & GridLockAndy. After some time Julian linked with William Bolanos, Founder of Ever Evolved, to establish a vision that both of them shared musically and creatively. During the time of building the company Julian expanded his creativity into production as well as taking on the business side of Ever Evolved. A jack of all trades is what you can call him.
William Bolanos
EverEvolved Owner
Born and raised in Chicago, Il. I started EverEvolved as a music blog to promote conscious creative music from Chicago. Throughout my life i have been entertained by music of all genres. Music is my one consistent love and seeing it promoted in mainstream television networks in such negative and lazy form, i decided to take matters into my own hands. Making it a mission to open minds to the underground and artists who create original music out of passion rather than greed.
Working along side Rhymster and Frekwenzy at Fort Knox Studios, we quickly transformed EverEvolved into a music studio, event and promotion company. With this platform we not only promote music, we create it and bring it to an audience directly. Hoping to inspire and bring talented individuals together. We aim to create a future of music with class, soul and original style.
Frekwenzy
My name is Ken and I am an engineer/ producer/ and graphic designer out of EverEvolved Studios located near Montrose Blue Line train station in Chicago, IL.
I specialize in EDM and trap based production. I tend to enjoy creating beats from scratch with the people I work with just because I believe in the artistry. It’s always fun to create something organic from scratch. What usually happens in one of my sessions is I would start working on a beat with a lyricist and we would bounce off ideas and give each other critiques.
Xandr
I started gaining an interest in music from a young age. Eventually taking guitar lessons when I was in 6th and 7th grade. Then later into highschool I was musically involved with some friends in a band for a while which just brought me closer and closer to music. Which ultimately lead to me picking up Ableton which completely changed my outlook on music altogether.
As far as to why I do it….well it’s just a part of me. Sitting down to compose and edit music always gives me a really calming rush. Especially knowing that I came from dreaming about as a kid to being here right now.
