G Herbo is one of the best young spitters in the game. The talented Chicago rhymer came up at a time when his city was known for so-called Drill music, but outlived that subgenre’s peak with a knack for vivid storytelling and dense lyricism honed by influences such as Jay-Z, Dipset, Lil Wayne and other names he’s shouted out on acclaimed projects like Welcome To Fazoland and Ballin’ Like I’m Kobe. His debut studio album Humble Beast released late last year and quickly became the opus for the new era of Chicago music.
In his music and interviews, Herbo displays a wisdom that’s popularly perceived as “beyond his years” – but growing up in the roughest areas of Chicago necessitated a a heightened level of maturity and cognizance at a young age. He shed light on his upbringing in “City Of Sorrow,” a Mass Appeal-produced mini-documentary that touches on how the violence he experienced shaped him.
The doc does well not to trivialize or glorify his experience, letting him, his former teacher Ralph Bennett, and manager Mikkey Halstead speak for themselves. They cover his humble beginnings from rapping voice notes into a phone for friends, to the video which showed Bennett that he had “it.” Throughout the doc, Herbo drops jewels which give an insight into how he’s wired, such as his admission that all the premature death he experiences bore a pain he applies to his craft to this day.
If you weren’t familiar with Herbo before, watch the doc and get familiar.
