Okayplayer Features Gemstones

If you ask any rapper to come out of Chicago in the last 15 years, they can tell you how much of a hustle it is to break out. Funny thing is, in a game where it’s all about who you know, Chicago may be one of the weakest examples of that. This story can be directly applied to 1st & 15th, Lupe Fiasco's label, and to a greater degree, Gemstones.

Gemstones is or, was, the dude on vocals on all of your favorite Lupe tracks from both Food & Liquor & The Cool. “Go Baby”, he’s chillin in the cut; “He Say, She Say”- your boy was there under the name Gemini- but now, it’s strictly Gemstones, with a reassessed outlook on the game, and indebted focus, for all of those on the come up.

“It was, 2000 or 2001 when I first hooked up with Lupe,” Gemstones, a Chi-town native began, “and he was doin’ what I wanted to do with the game. We fist met in the studio, and when I learned how he was stepping to everything, and that he owned his own publishing company, I had to get with him.” And after getting with him, things quickly began to spark. Initially with Lupe’s first effort, and then with the explosion of the Chicago underground-turned-mainstream scene.

“It was crazy, the first album. We were just recording whatever, whenever. Lupe would hit me like ‘Yo ‘Stone, lets got to the studio,’ and we were just havin fun with it, and then come to find out, some of the records we did, made it to the album.” This studio comradery fast approached brain trust like stature on The Cool, where writing was clearly “more business.” This chemistry has since then translated to a vibe that is developing, perhaps to brilliant heights, on Gemstone’s forthcoming debut album, The Troubles Of The World.

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