Chief Keef releases 'I Don't Like' — Chicago drill arrives nationally
Chief Keef (Keith Cozart), then 16, releases 'I Don't Like' as part of his Back from the Dead mixtape on March 12, 2012. Produced by Young Chop, the track's pounding 808s, sparse hi-hats, and explicit South Side Chicago lyrical content define the Chicago drill sub-genre that had been coalescing in the city's underground for the previous year. Kanye West records a high-profile remix featuring Pusha T, Big Sean, and Jadakiss four months later. Chief Keef signs to Interscope in mid-2012 on a six-million-dollar deal.
Why it matters
Drill had been happening on the South Side of Chicago for at least a year before "I Don't Like." Pacman, who is sometimes credited as the originator, had been releasing drill records in 2011 before he was killed that year. King Louie had been releasing drill records. Lil Reese had been. The whole scene was already in place. What "I Don't Like" did, in three minutes, is put the entire regional aesthetic onto the national rap conversation through a sixteen-year-old's mixtape verse, then onto the major-label charts through Kanye's remix four months later. Chief Keef became one of the most-discussed teenage rap figures of 2012. The drill template — pounding 808s, deadpan delivery, street-narrative specificity — would spread through Chicago, then to London (UK drill, 2014 onward), then to Brooklyn (2017 onward). You can trace the next decade of drill internationally back to this one mixtape track. He was sixteen.
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