The Student Becomes The Teacher

Femdot Grinds His Way To Success

Words by Ray Mestad  •  Photos by Michael Salisbury

Femdot's been doing a lot of thinking. Ready to transcribe the thoughts racing through his head, a pencil rests behind Femi's ear. Ideas manifest on paper one word at a time, first stop before becoming a Femdot classic. Attacking his music with fiery intensity and stone cold consistency, the Chicago rapper is a professional, putting in work, thought, executing and getting results. Each verse is a chance to set himself apart, no throwaways. For Femi, it's always a contest; count on him taking the time to do it right.

His project (u)no is dropping any second now, the last in a line of numbered EP’s that began with fo(u)r, each exploring a different side of Femdot. Arguably the heaviest of the bunch, (u)no is closest to thr(we), honest, political and raw. Like each entry in the series, and the rest of Femdot’s library in general, it’s a personal project. So if you don’t know Femi yet, it’s time to get to know him.

His early years were spent just outside the city in Evanston, before bouncing around the south suburbs, Uptown and Rogers Park. The son of Nigerian immigrants, Femdot, who’s known by his family and friends as Femi Adigun, is the youngest of four children that have all set the bar high. His family and siblings are multifaceted and ambitious, with careers ranging from businessman to comedian to athlete and a founder of the first Nigerian Olympic Bobsled team (true story), sending the message to Femi that there was no right or wrong way to pursue a dream. Femi himself is currently a student at Depaul University studying Biological Sciences.

His siblings weren’t only around to inspire professionally, but they also brought some culture into Femi’s life early on. Like many younger siblings of the world, Femi’s older brother Kola was the one who first exposed Femi to hip-hop, a music mentor.

"We were a Roc-A-Fella household" Femi tells us, “‘Ether’ didn’t exist in the crib.”

Femi’s siblings opened up his eyes to music, and his parents we’re motivators who pushed him to excel in whatever he did.

“They (his family) just impacted how I work, and how I move. In an African household, you have to have everything planned, everything strategic. If you’re going out, how you’re getting there, when you’re gettin' back, when you’re gettin' there, what time it is, whose parents is it, what's the address, what's the phone number, what's the fake phone number to give to your parents..who’s your friend you're going with, has your friend met your mom yet and ask a week in advance. So when I apply that to rap? It's easy, I've been doing this all my life!"

Femdot’s precision stands out. Conversing over drinks, Femdot dives into his life, music, process, giving weight to each point. As we talked, Femi laid out detailed mental blueprints of his past and future projects, and it became clear that the guy is one for attention to detail. As a rapper and a writer, Femdot thinks out each step, his M.O. from the beginning.

“I’m a very logical person, always have been. Once I realized that if I treat every song, every release I was working on, how I treated situations I used to finesse in high school, how I got around with stuff, whatever I was trying to do, and I started executing things? Then stuff would fall into place. With the music, with the rollout, it has to sound how I want it to in my head, then I do what I need to do to get it out to the people that I need to, and control the narrative that is my career...the formula is execute, set a plan in motion and knock it out.”

Femdot is thinking through everything, and the logic is obvious - he wants to be the best. Listen to his complex series of EP’s from the last year, fo(u)r, thr(we), to(u), and arriving tomorrow, (u)no, you’ll hear an artist taking every opportunity to catch his listeners off guard. Because of that, the competitive and creative aspects share importance. It makes for music that’s 100% Femdot, big ideas and big talent.

"When I'm rapping, Kobe didn't get on the court to say he's second best, Jordan didn't go ‘you know what, I'm not going for 40 today’...whether it's a love song, rap song, happy song, poetry, fuckin' whether it's a ‘whisper’ song, I'm tryna have the best ‘whisper’ verse ever. My content is my life, the situations around me, or talking about bodying people. There's no in between. So I have to make sure I'm telling the truth all the time.”

Talking to him about music and life, it all comes back to this mindset. Femdot leans into the grind; part of maintaining that consistency is keeping his sound fresh, looking at his music from every angle possible, adapting whenever possible. Whether he’s flexing on the King Dilla EP or giving it "soul” on fo(u)r, his work breathes in creative openness.  

"I become more open to things because I want to be looked at as the greatest, and in order to to do that you have to able to rap over anything adequately and make someone listen to it. It's changed for me, just trying to do just like Dilla-esque joints or like super underground joints to me doing a record like "On Our Own" or ".97". And I listen to r&b a lot...so it's gonna have an influence on what I do, but at the end of the day I'm a wordsmith, I've always been a person where the words play a part...I can hop on a Chief Keef joint, I'm still gonna rap how I rap, I'm just gonna make it fit that. I'm more focused on the words and whatever idea I have in my head than what category I want to put this rap song in."

That pencil behind his ear isn’t there for decoration. The writing process is central to Femdot’s approach, necessary for the results he wants and a passion of his regardless. You don’t get the impression Femi suffers writer’s block often - he’s written far more songs than he could ever release. But released or not, each track he writes makes his tongue that much sharper.

It’s training as much as anything else.

“I have thousands of verses, I write like four songs per day. Thousands of half verses, lines, verses...I have a bunch of notebooks at home and my notepad here is ridiculous. It’s actually disrespectful...I write two verses and pick the hottest verse, or if they’re equally good but different styles I’ll blend them together...I always have two different ways to approach it, like “oh, I could tell a story right now”, or I could play with words and destroy a song.”

Chicago’s youth programs were instrumental in Femdot’s development, sharpening his skill sets as a writer and performer. They provided focus as well - Femdot wanted to rap since he was 6, but there’s always distractions, and Femi grants that he toed the line between up late studying and up to no good. With good grades and a talent for finessing situations, Femdot got away with a lot.

“We were all just bad as hell.. I mean I was very good with conduct, I didn’t get in trouble in school, I’ve never gotten in trouble at school, never got in trouble....I just did bad shit and got away with it. Because I was always good at school, I had the perfect alibi.’Femi not finna...WHAT? Why would Femi...he just got an A on his paper!’ I spoke at graduation! ”  

Young Chicago Authors (YCA), Louder Than a Bomb (LTAB) and Harold Washington Library’s YouMedia were places for Femdot to study his trade, his art. During high school Femi began to call YCA and LTAB home, and the organization continues to mold some of the most talented artists in Chicago and the world. LTAB acts as YCA’s competitive cousin, a youth poetry slam that Femi once competed in and earlier in the day served as a judge for a February competition.

"YCA has done so much for my entire existence...originally I wanted to just rap better, so I found out about the spoken word competition…maybe I'll go to the spoken word and it'll help me write, cuz my rapping is purely writing.”

Femi’s first year participating in the YCA/LTAB program he made it to the semi-finals, but was disqualified for language. A rookie mistake, Femi adapted his style to LTAB’s format and utilized the environment to his advantage. In 2012 alongside other Chicago names like Mick Jenkins, Jean Deaux and Saba just to name a few, Femi thrived in YCA’s collaborative and supportive atmosphere.

"I would go back, just write, make friends and grow artistically. To be part of that community and see who my friends are becoming...mentally, writing wise...You only get better year by year. I don't know what to expect from the next year or two in Chicago. YCA & LTAB, that's a thing."

All of these factors have resulted in Femdot and his music that we see today. Diligent output that emphasizes being unpredictable. Stories from his life delivered with honesty coming alive over rich beats, from older underground sounds to anything else. The words, the energy, but one of the best parts about Femdot is that he never wants a song just to be a song. From the boom-bap of femdelacreme, to the raw energy of King Dilla and the personal nature of his current EP series, there’s always more beneath the surface.

“...The past three projects are all connected. chapter sixteen...is connected to femdelacreme. The last song on there is supposed to lead into me turning 17, femdalcreme is talking about 17 to 18 and that transition. Not being a kid anymore, I go to college, I come back. King Dilla is an alter-ego that I found to balance myself back out...it was a form of therapy for me...it forced me to level up, and it put a name on the person I am on stage, because I’m a different person on stage...After that I thought it was femdelacreme2 time, but even then I wasn’t ready. As resources get bigger, my ideas get bigger, femdelacreme2 has been through like 40 different concepts...this is where the 4-3-2-1 came from. Smashing these concepts and the radio idea together is how the EP’s started forming.”

All the planning goes out the window once Femdot is on stage. He’s mentioned multiple times that he can never remember his performances, going into some sort adrenaline rush blackout state. He’s not lying - watching him live at his vibing, tequila laden (u)no listening party at Fort Knox Studios last Sunday, and you saw a transformation. For all that discipline, once Femi grips he finally gets to let loose, and you want to be there when he does.

Femdalcreme2 has been through dozens of iterations, concepts and revisions, but is on the way. More importantly, (u)no, the bookend to his 2016 EP series comes out tomorrow. What happens from here is unknown, but bet on Femdot. His goals for now are simple; keep racking up the views, releasing music and building his fan base.

Confident, meticulous, passionate, all sentiments that exude from Femi. Listen to his layered thematic projects or see him perform live and be exposed to an energy matched by few. Three EPs, a Red Bull’s Sound Select artist, debuting his DelaCremeSessions, these are the tip of the iceberg when it comes to Femi's accomplishments in 2016. He's juggling his responsibilities as a student with increasing popularity as an artist as well. From here, Femdot isn’t concerned. The challenge is the hook.

"People just tell me I can't do stuff, so I do it. It's something I got from my sister, impossible as a challenge, as an idea...is caused due to fear of the unknown. Someone assumes it can't be done because it hasn't, so they're scared to see what happens if it does. When someone's like 'yeah, you can't do something', or if I say I'm gonna do something, I'm tryna do it, no matter how big it is….That's just how it's always been.”