FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Music

Chris Crack Is Serious About These Bubbles and Also This "Pine Cones" Music Video

The Chicago rapper shares the first video off his project 'Troll Till They Fold,' featuring lots of balloons and bubbles.

Screenshot via YouTube

Chicago's Chris Crack is one of rap's merriest pranksters, possessed with a razor-sharp wit, an eye for odd juxtapositions and hypocrisies, and a wry, elastic flow. His songs tend to find him in odd places: On his most recent mixtape, Troll Till They Fold, one song describes "apple picking on shrooms" while another quips about counting money at a Krispy Kreme in Atlanta. He's also sharp on more serious topics, making offhanded but profound references to police violence and deconstructing lingering racial stereotypes. Bringing back the 90s may be a played out idea, but there's a certain classicism to Chris Crack's music. It has the blend of silliness and seriousness that marks so much older rap—from De La Soul to Wu-Tang Clan—but often is lacking in more contemporary revivals of those sounds.

Of course, that humor also works well online, and Chris Crack deserves to be a star for the online era. Need proof of his brilliance? Just watch the video for "Pine Cones," premiering here right now, which pairs sharp lines with goofy imagery of Chris carrying balloons and a bubble gun around the suburbs. "Maybe police'll stop this motherfucking violence," he spits at one point, stone-faced, shooting bubbles out of the bubble gun. Such is life: Deadly serious, but also constantly reminding us to seek out levity. Chris Crack gets it. "Chicago got money for everything but education," he says, as way of comment on the video and the tape. It's a real sentiment that takes on a level of absurdity as he repeats it, which in turn makes you think about it more.

Check out the video for "Pine Cones," directed by LA's Born Ready Films, below, and find Troll Till They Fold right here.

Follow Kyle Kramer on Twitter.