One of the most underrated artists in Chicago, Femdot, finally released his long awaited u(no) EP tonight. Like always, Femi comes with thru with thought provoking bars on each song, along with classic samples from SWV and the hit song of the century Return of the Mack. As a bonus, he also connects each of his EP’s over the past year, piecing it all together on the 20/20 Hour compilation. Read his explanation of all this below courtesy of FakeshoreDrive:
“(u)no is the final chapter because it’s the final piece of a full project called 20/20 Hour. So fo(u)r, thr(we), to(u) are all one collective project that I’ve spread out over a series of four EPs over the past year. I set each number up based upon the sound that I wanted to create and what I wanted to accomplish with each release. The reason I broke it up into four parts be because I wanted to drop them quarterly and spread it out. And before that I wanted to just drop the 20 song project but that was hella long.
fo(u)r was for you, and introduction to what I had going on, because I hadn’t dropped a project in two years. The last thing I dropped was King Dilla in 2014, and obviously I’m in a whole different space now. So fo(u)r sounds the way it does and has a bunch of different sounds to give you an overall understanding. And that’s the actual basis of the project, with the songs being spread out through the actual 20/20 Hour. So it kinda sets you up with the overall feel of the randomness of the project. But also works as an introduction for listeners on who I am. It’s personal records but it’s also really rappy.
thr(we) is all squad orientated. Every song has something to do with someone that’s been pivotal to my career. I’m part of a collective called Get Rich With Your Friends that me and my homie Chi formed. The whole metaphor I guess is formed from songs like “getrichforever”, and “Kola’sinterlude”. Kola is my brother, the rawest rapper ever to me. He’s actually gonna be at South By with me, and it’s exciting because it’ll be the first time he’s seen me perform. Even stuff like on “whtyawnt” “Girl I’m on my emerald, you ain’t know that I had Bam with me”. Ohana Bam is my best friend. Me and him actually started rapping together. So every song on [thr(we)] is orientated towards squad goals. And the cover shows half of my face because now you know half of me. You’re halfway there.
Then we get to to(u). Obviously with this one it’s a little more apparent why it’s got that name. For one because it’s two people in a relationship and it’s written as all love songs, to a person, the u. And (u)no is because now you know. Now you know me You got the full story. You can prepare yourself for Delacreme 2 and listen to this project as your prepare for the followup I’ve been working on for years.
I’ve also been looking into Supreme Mathematics and 13 and 4 are my favorite numbers and I’ve always wondered why. Just looking into that I kinda based each project off of Supreme Mathematics. You got one, which is knowledge, like “you know”. Two is wisdom, or woman, which is what to(u) is. You got three, which is understanding, so that you see squad and where I come from so that you get why I make the music I make. Then you got four, which is freedom. When I started recording fo(u)r it was based off that number because it was the freest I’ve ever felt. Like, ever.”
As you can see this dude is a genius and on his way to stardom. Hop on the bandwagon now before he blows up.
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Wanna know more about the man behind the mic? Listen to the dope interview we did with a him a few weeks back via 93 ‘TIl!
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