Lucki’s rise was not just lucky

Lucki has been professionally rapping since he was a teenager. (Photo courtesy of Our Generation Music)

There is something uncanny about listening to Chicago rapper Lucki’s music. It’s amorphous in the sense that the instrumentals may be layered, sample-heavy and dense but the artist is frequently willing to just fill the sonic space with straight bars and no hook. Songs can be abstract in terms of structure; it’s hard to tell when Lucki is about to break out into a bridge, chorus, another verse or simply end a track. Moreover, Lucki’s drug-hazed lyrics are not the type that one would assume has received the respect of more traditional mainstream stalwarts like Justin Timberlake and Pharrell, but those were among the many who heaped praise on the rapper at the start of his career. One thing is for sure though, Lucki’s music is entirely his own.

In light of his latest release, s*x m*ney dr*gs (2023), Lucki is now afforded the same public attention that his idols like Chief Keef and Future were given during their apexes. On July 7th, Lucki hit a career-high for being streamed within a day at 8 million; two-fold of his previous personal best. This is no mistake, as the Chicagoan has been honing his craft since he was 16-years-old, when he released his cult-classic Alternative Trap (2013) mixtape. Since then, Lucki’s work ethic has been commendable; he has 12 full-length projects on streaming platforms. While it has only be recently where an effort since Alternative Trap received the heightened notoriety that his debut had earned him, each project has produced gems that led to the widely-acclaimed FLAWLESS LIKE ME (2022), where he even got to link up with Future on the popular “KAPITOL DENIM.” 

Tracks like “Peach Dream” off of 2019’s Freewave 3 show Lucki’s affinity for making ear-candy that doesn’t shy away from delicate topics like drug abuse and dealing with depression. Lyrics like “You too good to be true, you like Actavis” and “Got my momma Googling lean, keep sendin’ me kidney stuff” are awfully blunt and somber on paper, but Lucki makes these insights out to be casualties of a lifestyle that he has fully accepted. This is further emphasized on a song like “Waiting On” from 2017’s Watch My Back, where Lucki raps “Barely sprite, no ice, I might die tonight” with a nonchalant candor that provokes sympathy with listeners who take the time to delve into his personal admissions. Lucki’s reasoning behind making these kinds of statements make sense when you look back to 2016, where the artist evaded the rap game for some time to try to focus on self-care and moderating his overindulgent tendencies. Lucki turned to the content of those he looked up to in order to try to decipher his internal dilemmas, citing Future’s mid-2010s prolific run of success with albums like Monster (2015) and DS2 (2016) as borderline coping mechanisms. Fortunately for Lucki and fans alike, the underground legend returned and went straight back to work, eventually coming full circle with his aforementioned collaboration with the same man who he depended on at his darkest times for a lighthearted banger in “KAPITOL DENIM.”

It’s well-known who inspired Lucki’s stylistic decisions with his music, but he has clearly garnered enough acclaim to become an influence on his own. Pop-culture juggernauts like Drake or indie-darlings like King Krule share the same level of respect for Lucki and what he has done for not only music, but also the awareness he brought to the potential for self-sufficiency in the music industry as a whole. Lucki has been an independent artist throughout his entire career; he has no label affiliation besides a distribution deal with EMPIRE. Through sheer will and creativity, Lucki has shown that persistence is as effective as widespread advertising because if your product is good enough in hip-hop, then the fans and peers will sell it for you. This became especially evident when Drake’s Apple Music radio station OVO Sound began to play Lucki’s songs in the late 2010s, further showcasing that Lucki’s reliance on himself (both through a lack of features on his albums and his independent label status) has paid dividends. More than this though, Lucki’s distinct sound has began to produce disciples of his own, such as Veeze, who recently released his breakout album titled Ganger (2023) which features the likes of Lucki, as well as other tastemakers like Lil Yachty and Lil Uzi Vert.

Lucki wholly embraces the musical canon in its entirety; many of his albums are inspired by iconic covers such as Freewave 2’s (2016) allusion to Nirvana’s Nevermind (1991) and Freewave 3’s (2019) ode to DMX’s Flesh Of My Flesh, Blood Of My Blood (1998). Whether it’s a surprise to Lucki though, he has managed to become a member of hip-hop’s lore and music’s canon himself through years of dedication, trials and tribulations.