Whilst playing with his lighter, Chicago-based musician Saba recounts several stories — all of which stem from over a decade ago — pertaining to the origins of a community of Chicago musicians, gliding through their respective careers, each adding gravitas and perspective to Chicago's hip-hop renaissance.
“It’s really special when you meet your tribe of people,” he says, almost stunned at how long it’s been. He’s chatting to GQ over Zoom. “I never intended to be part of this. I was just in my grandmother’s basement recording music,” he laughs. He details the early experiences of this clan of musicians, who were connected by their impassioned determination to imbue hip-hop with the soul of the city. Noname, Mick Jenkins, Pivot Gang — which comprised of Saba himself, his brother Joseph Chilliams (AKA Jerrel Chandler), his cousin John Walt, friend MFnMelo, Dam Dam, Frsh Water, daedae, Daoud and SqueakPIVOT— and Smino are just some of the acts Saba is referring. The fact that two of his closest affiliates — SqueakPIVOT and his cousin Walt, whose deaths form an integral part of his breakout album Care For Me and his latest, Few Good Things — were still present years prior to their respective deaths seems to bring unwavering joy to Saba.
“In Chicago, what was special was that we were all helping each other. I remember recording some of Mick Jenkins’ music down there [in my grandmother's basement], I remember doing some of Noname Telefone there too. A lot of stuff that can’t be recreated, it was just the time. We were 18, 19 years old, everyone had left school. The fact that we all met each other, there was something in the stars. [They all] pushed sound, and culture forward. It makes you take yourself more serious.”
On top of his production assistance on watershed breakthroughs like Telefone, Saba was also drafted in for a feature on Chance The Rapper’s — the early outbreak star from that same Chicago crew — 2013 debut mixtape Acid Rap. The song, “Everybody's Something” critiques America’s commercial structures, as well as institutions like policing, but also platforms self-determination. Saba looks to his West Chatham peer with gratitude. “[Acid Rap] added more fuel to the fire, he added a blueprint. There weren't a lot of people helping us. He held it down for us,” he shares.
But Saba, across the late ‘10s and early ‘20s, has become a pivotal figure in modern rap in his own right. At 27-years old, he’s exhibited vulnerability and storytelling prowess that few of his peers could touch, through his navigation of life, death and his city on early releases like Getcomfortable and The Bucket List Project. As he grew, so did his voice. His 2018 album, Care For Me, which saw the young artist mourning the death of his cousin John Walt — who was stabbed to death in early 2017 — was a searing, heartbreaking work that rightly landed him on various year-end lists. Both harrowing and intimate, it's a masterclass in emotional mapping, which excavates the dearth of desires in the short-term that follows significant loss.
Now able to encapsulate the most hollow of emotions onto his musical canvas, he ironically reveals that that wasn’t always the case for him as a lyricist and as a person outside of the recording studios. “I was probably 16 when Frsh [Water] first took me to my open mic and I was intimidated as fuck.” Saba leans closer into the mic. “It was like: if you’re dope, you should have no problem performing in front of these people. It took me three weeks to actually get the confidence to perform for the first time.” Saba admits that he was stared at the floor for the duration of his first performance.
Saba’s father brought him and his siblings to New York over the summer during his adolescence, and got them to rap in front of an older consumer base to sharpen their backbones. “You had no idea what type of crowd this was. I was 15 and 16 with my brother and my father [was] giving us his notes. It was super dope, because when I came back to Chicago, I was able to look people in the eye and really believe in myself.”
One look at Saba’s 2014 Redbull Sound Select Show on YouTube, and it’s easy to see that those hard nights in New York paid off. “[New York] was one of the most important things that I experienced,” he says. “That’s what broke that shyness and introspection.”
Beneath his clear drive now is an innocence yearning to enter the fore. “I honestly, as an adult, try and stay in tune with the childhood version of myself, because I think that’s important.” To Saba, it fuels a lot of his imagination and acts as a strong form of escapism. “I watch a lot of [Hey Arnold!], Bob's Burgers. Boondocks is some of my favourite shit. I almost always watch exclusively shit that’s supposed to be funny.” Adjusting his white T-Shirt, before toying with his lighter once more, he refuses to watch other people’s problems on-screen. “My life is way too serious already,” he says.
Saba, unfortunately, isn’t joking. Over the course of his rise, his projects have acted as a reference point for the world around him — the good, and the bad. On Care For Me’s “Prom/King” in particular, he recalls his adolescence with Walt. “Oh, the streets bring sorrow,” he raps towards the end of the song. “Care For Me is so ironic because I wanted to make a happy album with bangers,” Saba echoes with both a bleakness and irony in his tone. “I have to go where the music takes me, music has become a life companion for me, whatever’s on my brain.” He likens the recording process to a quote he read recently that alleges that over 90% of thoughts are thoughts that a human has had previously. “It was the same thing over and over, the same dark thoughts going into sessions,” he summarises.
On his third album, Few Good Things, Saba once again has to confront grief, following the passing of key PIVOTgang member Squeak last year. On the G Herbo-assisted “Survivor’s Guilt,” he identifies his own demons and avoidance atop trap-laced hip-hop production. “This album's confessions of a man moving quick, one day he regret it.” Saba is evidently sombre for a moment before collecting his thoughts. “I never thought [someone close to me being murdered] would happen again,” he states. “It takes something universal like death and makes it personal. I ask myself: how could I have moved differently? What could I have done better? That’s what’s so hard about survivor’s guilt. I don’t think it’ll ever leave me.”
Saba only attended therapy for the first time in his life for mental health last year. “[Conventional mental health therapy] happened for me when everything slowed down last year.” A consistent run of gigs, festivals and recording sessions acted as a barrier to him carrying out self-care.
“Because of the nature of our career, I don’t always know exactly what I’m doing. Therapy was always hard to commit to. When the commitments slowed down, I had all the time in the world, the pandemic also put me in a tough space, nothing felt certain and that allowed me to feel a lot of feelings that I didn’t know were underneath the surface. I knew at that point that it was time to talk to someone.”
Outside of his lingering traumas, Few Good Things acts as a celebration — or at least an acknowledgement — of every aspect of life. Saba leans into his braggadocious side, as well as honing in on the low-key joys that life can provide — in stark contrast to some of the darker parts of Care For Me. “Still,” a collaboration with 6lack and Smino echoes this: he’s still “rough as a rider” and in search of a beat to “kill”. “It’s easy to see what you don’t have,” Saba begins, thoughtfully pausing in his train of thought. “[Few Good Things] is the opposite, it’s the living and experiencing life, being grateful for every moment. It’s living in what we have right now.”
Even on a sonic level, Saba’s third LP is markedly more enlightened. “Fearmonger” toys with the nuances of life in its employment of drum patterns. Even though the song also acknowledges the stigma around poverty, he raps along to the soul-infused backing vocals with a lighter rhythmic pattern. It's powerful stuff but in a lighter format — he’s raising awareness to the internal fears, but almost as a warning to himself, instead of something that’ll ultimately catch him.
The project ushers in old Chicago friends from the Pivot Gang, as well as Mereba and newcomers like Foushee but it's at its most impressive when it prioritises rap-legend Black Thought, who, alongside Saba, closes the title track “Few Good Things”. At just over seven minutes, the smoky jazz and hip-hop meld is an ode to the origins of the genre, featuring robust instrumentation and a sharp political slant. “I got to perform with Smino just before the pandemic with The Roots, and Black Thought kept in touch with me,” Saba says, clearly grateful for the relationship. “I enjoy the challenge of standing against one of the greats. So I always wanted to work with people who inspire me. And it’s such a powerful verse.”
After a run of great mixtapes and albums, Saba has bared his soul to the world. The highs and the lows — it’s all out there now. Now, he is keen to display further shades of himself. “True acceptance as an artist comes from feeling understood and I don’t know if I feel understood just yet." He references “Fearmonger” once more, continuing his sentiment. “I want to keep continuing to push my own boundaries like that. The more artists create boundaries of how they create, they fail to be understood.”
More than anything, however, Saba is passionate about the lighter moments of life and yearns for more time to express that aspect of himself to family, friends, and fans alike. “I’m so much more [than my serious moments]. I’m just trying to laugh bro.” Leaning back, he concludes: “Hopefully I have a long and fruitful career and everyone can get to know that side of me too.”
Saba's Few Good Things is out 4th February.
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