Chicago Drill's new voice: Lil Raheim delivers from 79th to the world
The South Side of Chicago has spent the last decade reshaping global street rap, and the next wave of drill is being shaped by artists who grew up streaming the genre's pioneers as preteens. Among the most discussed projects this season is the debut LP from a young emcee who has been quietly stacking clips in the back half of Englewood, drawing comparisons to both the early Chief Keef era and the more melodic post-2018 strain. For listeners in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, where drill has long since fused with local hip hop, the record offers a chance to hear where the sound began to bend before it reached Australian shores.
In Australia, drill has its own ecosystem, built around collectives like Sydney's ONEFOUR and a generation of Melbourne producers sampling UK and US variants simultaneously. Triple J has been giving the local hybrid increasing rotation, and the chart performance of artists such as Masked Wolf proved that listeners here will respond to trans-Pacific drill when the songwriting holds up. The arrival of a new Chicago LP that takes melodic drill seriously, rather than as a stepping stone, is therefore worth a serious listen on this side of the equator.
This review walks through the album track by track, looking at the production choices, the vocal delivery, and the moments where Lil Raheim pushes against the genre's usual boundaries. It also sits the record against the current state of Chicago's underground and asks whether it has the legs to travel from the 79th Street blocks it was made on to playlists in Carlton, Newtown and Fortitude Valley.
Who is Lil Raheim and why this album matters
Lil Raheim first surfaced on SoundCloud and WorldStar compilations in 2021, when he was still finishing high school on the South Side, and the early loose singles established a writer who could switch from guttural barking to wounded hooks without warning. Where many peers leaned on plugg beats or Detroit-influenced synth lines, Raheim gravitated toward producers who still worked in 808s tuned to minor keys, the texture that powered the original drill wave. The resulting mixtape circulation earned him features on well-trafficked underground blogs, and by 2024 he was being name-checked in liner notes by established OTF and 4PF affiliates.
The new project, From 79th to the World, is positioned as a statement rather than a mixtape. The sequencing borrows from the gospel-tinged structure that 21 Savage and the late Drakeo the Ruler experimented with, opening with a spoken-word prayer and closing with a slowed-down voicemail from a family member. Between those bookends, the record spends more time on reflection than the average drill tape, with several beats pulling back the tempo so the verses can breathe. That structural choice is what separates the project from the dozens of similar releases that flood DSPs every Friday, and it explains why it has been picked up by underground-focused outlets well before any major press cycle.
Production on the album was split between two Chicago-based engineers and a small handful of remote contributors, including one beat sent in by a London producer who has been quietly feeding the UK side of the scene. The sound borrows from the regional UK variant that Australian drill fans will recognise from ONEFOUR's catalogue. For producers trying to reverse-engineer the same kind of detuned leads, a useful primer on building the sound in Serum is available through this FM synthesis walkthrough.
The sonic palette: 808s, choirs and cinematic detours
The most striking choice on From 79th to the World is how the producer, known only as YNGWAV, balances heavy sub-bass with brittle, almost ambient texture in the high end. Several tracks open with what sounds like a chopped recording of a south-side church service before snapping into a rigid 140 BPM pattern, a move that recalls the early work of producers like Young Chop but with a cleaner low end. The result is a sound that holds up on club rigs in Chippendale and on earbuds in Perth, which matters for an album hoping to be cross-continental.
The use of choir samples is consistent without becoming a gimmick. On "Prayers in the Park," the harmonies are pitched up and processed until they sit just under the snare, giving the chorus a haunted quality that the vocal performance leans into. On harder cuts like "Sauce Talk," the same approach is stripped back, and the beats lean almost entirely on 808 slides and a single piano stab. The wider trend of producers layering soft textures alongside harder drums is documented in pieces covering lo-fi hip hop influence on modern beat-making, and the techniques here sit firmly inside that conversation.
The album also includes two purely instrumental interludes built around vinyl crackle and what sounds like distant CTA train announcements. These interludes serve as connective tissue, and they reflect a growing tendency across the underground to treat the album as a sequenced object rather than a playlist of singles. Listeners who stream the project through a community RSS feed will hear those transitions more cleanly than algorithm-driven shuffle, and it is the kind of record that benefits from a proper sit-down listen on a quiet evening.
Lyrics, storytelling and the weight of place
Lil Raheim's writing has always been detail-oriented, and From 79th to the World leans further into specifics than his earlier work. Lines reference specific cross-streets, the names of local parks, and the small economies of block-level hustling that rarely make it into mainstream press coverage of the South Side. Where much contemporary drill reduces violence to atmosphere, Raheim lingers on the aftermath, on funerals, on the slow rebuild that follows a lost summer. There is a track, "Grandma's Couch," that runs almost four minutes and is built almost entirely on a single piano loop, and it is the emotional centre of the record.
The hooks are also more developed than is typical for the sub-genre. "Ozone" uses a sample of a voicemail from a childhood friend who is now incarcerated, looping the phrase "we still here" until it functions as a chorus. "Crossroads," the lead single, borrows its hook structure from a classic R&B record that older Australian hip hop heads will recognise from Hilltop Hoods' sample crates. The accessibility of those hooks helps explain why a station like Triple J would have a reason to spin the project even outside dedicated underground programming.
There are moments where the writing does fall into familiar patterns, particularly on the posse cut "Block List," which assembles three guest emcees for a back-to-back routine that has been done a hundred times. But even there, the verses have enough local texture to feel less like a template than a tribute. For fans used to hearing Kerser or ONEFOUR build similar community moments in Australian drill, the parallels are easy to draw, and the project reads as part of a wider international conversation rather than an isolated statement.
Track-by-track highlights and a quick comparison
| Track | Length | Mood | Standout Element |
|---|---|---|---|
| 79th Intro | 1:42 | Somber | Spoken-word prayer sets the tone |
| Prayers in the Park | 3:18 | Haunting | Pitched choir, vulnerable vocal |
| Sauce Talk | 2:47 | Aggressive | Hard 808s, rapid-fire hook |
| Grandma's Couch | 3:56 | Reflective | Single piano, long-form storytelling |
| Ozone | 3:04 | Anthemic | Voicemail sample as chorus |
| Crossroads | 3:21 | Bittersweet | R&B-sampled hook, lead single |
| CTA Interlude | 1:18 | Ambient | Field recording, breathing room |
| Block List | 4:02 | Communal | Three guest verses, posse energy |
| 4am in Englewood | 3:34 | Cinematic | Strings, slow-burn narrative |
| Free Smoke Outro | 4:11 | Hopeful | Slowed voicemail, gospel close |
The sequencing, combined with the deliberate pacing of the slower cuts, places the album in conversation with the more auteur-driven recent Chicago projects, including records by the likes of Fredo Bang and B-Lovee, but with a narrative arc closer to a Saba release. Compared with the original Chief Keef tapes, the production is noticeably less lo-fi, and the writing is less concerned with shock value. Compared with the UK scene, the tempos are slightly more varied and the harmonic palette is darker. For Australian listeners used to a hybrid local style, the album will feel familiar in places and bracingly foreign in others, which is the right balance for a project hoping to travel.
Where to hear it next and how to plug in
The album is available across all major DSPs, and the physical release, which is being pressed in a limited run through a Chicago-based distributor, is expected to reach a handful of Australian record shops in Melbourne and Sydney by the end of the quarter. For readers wanting to dig deeper into the wider context of underground drill and lo-fi production trends, Tha Hop runs regular features, event listings, and discussion threads that surface links to obscure remixes and B-sides that do not always hit the algorithm.
Engaging with the community is part of the experience, and upvoting helpful answers in the comment sections keeps thoughtful threads visible, which is how the best recommendations tend to surface. Following the community RSS feed and the lo-fi hip hop influence coverage already running on the site will keep new releases, features, and event listings arriving in one place, which is helpful for anyone tracking the underground rather than waiting for a major-label rollout.