Emone Quadeem & Bigg Baby: A True Westside Story

Emone Quadeem and Bigg Baby (Photos by Julien Carr at the Garfield Park Conservatory)

Chicago has another powerful rap duo with Bigg Baby & Emone Quadeem. In October, they dropped one of the best albums of the year with Ghetto Superstars —eight tracks full of energy that deserve to be played at full volume. Featuring hits like “Out the Bank”, “Reup,” and “Dior Bucket” we had to take a moment to catch up with both artists to learn more about their music-making process while in quarantine, the creation of “Ghetto Superstars,” and their plans for the future.

Read our Q&A with Bigg Baby & Emone Quadeem below and be sure to follow and listen to them on Spotify and Apple Music.

For the readers who don’t know yet, who are Emone Quadeem & Bigg Baby and how did you both start making music?

Emone Quadeem: Emone Quadeem is an artist, writer, producer, family man, and entrepreneur from the West Side of Chicago. I learned that I loved music early on and when I was like 8 or 9 I started writing raps and recording myself on this Walkman that I got for Christmas that year. Then life gets in between. I didn’t know I would be doing it today, but looking back it’s always been a part of my life.

Bigg Baby: I’m born and raised in the heart of the West Side of Chicago. I’m a manager/artist who has helped pave the way for some artists to become financially stable and or get signed to majors. I’m a former DJ and I was a rapper before I started managing. I was rapping at the time with a crew of about 20 people give or take. One of the artists had majors reaching out and people started talking to lawyers. Chaos started to happen because no one knew the business part of the industry. I stopped rapping and enrolled in school and received my degree in Music Business. Four years later, I find myself back in the booth making hits and still managing artists at the same time.

Ghetto Superstars has very high energy production and musical style throughout the project. What inspired you both and what was the creation process like?

EQ: First and foremost, shout out to all the producers that contributed to the project. Besides being inspired and driven by the actual music, I like to draw from real-life experiences. Life keeps me inspired. Music is just another outlet to express myself and my creativity. I learned if I attack it at that angle I’ll never run out of material. It’s a lot of depressing shit going on in the world right now, though, we just tried to bring a little bit of joy to the streets.

BB: My lifestyle inspired this project. I’m living everything I talk about in music. I’ve seen a lot of rappers be fake and try to keep up with the Joneses. I actually live what I preach. In “Dior Bucket” I say “my life is expensive, my life is expensive.” That’s a fact! I’m a king and I’m going to live that way to the day I die. I haven’t reached my peak and I know where I’m going.

The creation process was actually dope. We were on lockdown in our home studio and the shit just happened. EQ went in, recorded a hook and I would drop a verse. Sometimes vice versa. We had fun doing it and we were breaking through what were supposed to be hard times. We turned them into great ones. Taking advantage of the time we had and making hit records.

How have you both been able to continue to record during the pandemic? Have these unordinary times helped your process?

EQ: These crazy times really just helped us go set new goals and figure out more ways to put some W’s on the board. Besides that, the pandemic never affected our recording process. Ever since we decided we wanted to be recording artists, I’ve had my own equipment and studio. Almost 100% of the music you hear or heard has been recorded by us. In the beginning, I used to run back and forth from the engineer seat to the booth to get the right take. We’ve always been locked in like that before the virus was out here anyway. The way the game is set up now. you got to flood the fans constantly so I’m just staying locked and loaded.

BB: EQ is always recording, but it helped me lock down and record because I wasn’t going to my office anymore and he was in the home studio creating heat. I just jumped on a lot of his shit, and we said let's just do a project together. So I could say the unordinary times help me level up musically and mentally.

How does being from Chicago reflect in your music? How do you feel about being a part of the music scene that’s still producing National rap superstars each year?

EQ: My raps are real. They all are a reflection of life no matter how you look at it. I was born and raised in Chicago, so it has no choice but to bleed through the music. I feel good that artists from the city are getting their just due fasho, but the music scene of Chicago got some ways to go. Besides that, I know I still got work to do just being one of voices from the west, we considered the under dogs, it’s a lot more artist out here that need to be heard on a national level.

BB: Being from Chicago reflects a lot in my music because it's what made me this street-smart/book-smart young entrepreneur I am today. I rap about what I actually see or have seen and what’s really going on in my life. I feel great to be a part of a music scene that is still producing national rap superstars because it’s my first love. I can do music or be doing something apart from music for five days straight with no sleep. I have done it before and my body crashed on me. You are living when you are doing what you love to do and getting paid to do it.

What should fans expect from you in the future?

EQ: For my fans and supporters, you should expect more content, more music videos, blogs, docs - just more of me bringing you inside my world. For those who are not fans of mine yet, expect for me to be better than your favorite rapper and win you over. Outside of the music, I got a few different things in the works that are going to be major that I can’t speak on yet.

BB: Fans should expect me to executive produce projects with artists, putting out my own singles or tapes with artists —some I may rap on and some I may not. I am also starting my own champagne line that is named after me. Just working out some kinks.

After listening to your project multiple times, It would be dope to see an artist like King Von** collab with you both on a track. I think all of your sounds would line up perfectly. Who are your dream collabs?

**This interview was done before the recent tragic death of King Von. May he Rest In Peace.

EQ: I wanna collab with whoever’s dope and wants to work with me. My dream collab is Jay Z.

BB: I think King Von** is a dope artist and he is real/authentic so I wouldn’t mind collaborating with him even if I’m not on the track. My dream collaboration is Drake and Lil Wayne.

Why should people invest themselves in Emone Quadeem & Bigg Baby, both the artist and person?

EQ: You should invest In EQ because I’m investing myself in you. Every song, every bar I’m giving you all of me. Gems, game, my heart, soul, everything I know. I am trying to inspire you to go out and do whatever your mind and heart are set on.

BB: They should invest in us because it's real, it's authentic, it's really us. You don’t get smoke and mirrors or made-up personas. We are who we are and we actually come from the jungle. We turn any bad situation into a great one. We bring a different element to the game especially coming from the Westside of Chicago. Our energy/aura is unmatched.