The Heat Index: Mick Jenkins • 2011

The Heat Index is These Days’ hip-hop column showcasing a hot new record we can’t stop playing.

"2011" tells the origin story of one of Chicago's true rap superheroes with candor and humanity. Mick Jenkins indeed possesses a larger-than-life presence on the mic and on stage, but here he shares his beginnings as an ordinary college student, along with the failures and successes that fueled his extraordinary drive to master his craft.

In vivid detail, Mick traces his evolution, initially chasing popularity through poetry before being confronted by the shallowness of this pursuit. Ultimately, he discovers his purpose as an emcee and commits wholeheartedly to honing his skills for the sake of the art.

The second verse then shows the complexities of the first taste of “making it,” life’s challenges don’t go away, and the stakes of his art just get bigger. Through reflections on making his first major full-length release, the verse ends with a poetic callback to the last line of the first 16 bars —deconstructing the myth surrounding “making it” in the music industry while continuing to build the legend of Mick’s penmanship.

The Chicago emcee is probably best known for dealing in symbolism and acrobatic rhymes —there are still metaphors in this song that remind us of his prowess in this domain— but he’s also stellar when it comes to more direct storytelling. “2011” finds him doing the latter with such proficiency that you can almost close your eyes and feel like you’re watching a documentary. Fitting, as Mick’s career is of myth-building proportions, and yet he has never strayed away from the reality of the world around him.