Chip tha Ripper is one of the more entertaining rappers without an album out right now, and even though he covers the same topics as usual (the type of jeans he's wearing, the type of shoes, SBs this time if you were wondering) we're still totally into it. HOWEVER, one question we'll raise is this: When we spoke to Chip a couple months back he told us about how he liked DC Shoes because of what they represented to him, which was a way for him to abstractly unite his white and black fans and show them all that he is constantly on his grind (in the skateboarding sense and in the Never Not Working sense). Now that he's rapping about SBs does his allegiance to DC still stand? This is clearly a really important question for us, and it's one that wasn't answered in our Gen F on Chip from FADER 54, which you can read after the jump.
Download: Chip tha Ripper, "Fresh Fly"
SHOW YOUR TEETH
Clothes, money, weed, girls and Chip tha Ripper
Story by Sam Hockley-Smith
Photography by Travis Dove
Chip tha Ripper is from Cleveland, a city that is more or less cut off from the mechanisms of the rap industry. Yet people nationwide are still talking about him based on his Money mixtape and a verse from “Ohio All Stars” off Hi-Tek’s Hi-Teknology 3. That’s not much material, but it’s enough to garner interest from Jive, the perpetually underrated Ray Cash, Chris Brown (who stopped his performances in Cleveland, Columbus and Cincinnati, to play three of Chip’s songs over the PA) and some kids on the Brooklyn bound Q Train who sounded pretty convinced that he is the future of rap. “I’m in Cleveland, not even knowing how far this music is going,” Chip says. You can hear his smile through the phone.
Filtered through a blunt drawl that almost shows disdain for the beat, Chip raps about the same subjects as any mixtape rapper: clothes, money, weed and girls. But he pulls off a minor hip-hop miracle in 2008 by actually approaching these subjects with humor. Rather than just chill in the closet, his gear fights each other: Red Monkeys pissed off because the Bathing Apes keep starting shit. He has so much money that it explodes out of his body: I’m gonna hustle til I got hundred dollar bills hanging out my booty crack. His claim that when I ride though my city, people say, Look at fat P Diddy even causes him to crack up mid-verse. “The field I’m in is called ENTERTAINMENT,” he says. “You don’t always gotta do stuff the way they been doing it. That’s what separates you from them.”
On “Wusa Name,” Chip substitutes literally every subject that could get him in trouble (clothes, money, weed and girls) with the words “wusa name.” “My dude Moe, every time he tries to tell me something, he just says ‘wusa name’ 40 times and I won’t ever hear nothing he said,” Chip explains. “So one day I just tried to see how far I could get explaining something to somebody just saying ‘wusa name.’” It’s not that deep a concept, but it’s a clever and inventive one, and when dude is singing off-key about getting high over Rhianna’s “Umbrella” on “Cigarillo,” you realize he doesn’t need to get deep. He just needs to be fun. No backpackmo, but remember when hip-hop (and clothes, money, weed and girls) was about having fun?