Chief Keef: Finally Rich – review

"Ha, ha, ha": 17-year-old Chicago drill rapper Chief Keef's syllables land like lead weights on concrete. Deliberately defining a song titled Laughin' to the Bank by its absence of any mirth is entirely in character for Keef, who wears his perpetual screwface like a badge of pride across Finally Rich and never once lets light in. Portentous, monochrome synths, staccato beats and torpid tempos provide a backdrop of cheap grandeur; Keef doesn't so much ride the beat as pace suspiciously alongside it (sometimes, it's more like plodding). Dead-eyed and unvarnished, Keef's commitment to his aesthetic is admirable. But as tempting as it may be to link the harsh lives of the drill scene to his nihilistic stance, it would be a mistake to label Finally Rich completely joyless: Keef's stony surliness is itself where he finds his fun. For all its negativity, cavernous breakthrough hit I Don't Like, with its incongruous twinkling synths, sounds positively ebullient in an album context.