What Polo G Doesn’t Say
The Midwest emcee’s debut album is a stirring work of rap music that also serves as a progressive paridigm shifter — but can its SoundCloud scene follow suit?
On Die A Legend, Polo G doesn’t have time for mysogeny. That’s a weird thing to write, and: think of the lyrics “Pop Out.” It’s chorus, specifically:
“We pop out at your party, I’m with your gang / it’s gon’ be a robbery, so tuck ya chain / I’m a killer, girl, I’m sorry, but I can’t change / We ain’t aimin’ for your body, shots hit your brain.”
Now: imagine them rapped not over Iceberg Beatz and JD On The Track’s instrumental, but the sound of impending violence — the thrum you feel as things start going down. It’s a sound I heard on Chicago’s North Side, which is where the twenty year old Polo G is from. It’s a place he describes thusly: “We grew up with playin cops and robbers, I was never 12 / They tried to warn us like we gon’ see them Heaven gates or jail.”
These lyrics — like “Pop Out’s” chorus — are stark, but they’re also in a hurry to live. That’s actually the main takeaway. Time is limited. Polo knows it. Popping out is not an act of patience; the described “headshots” are efficient. Even the apology that precedes Polo G’s threat of violence is clipped. And here’s the think I can’t stop thinking: were “Pop Out” by Polo’s fellow Chicagoan Juice WRLD or even Future — a Soundcloud Rap progenitor whose Save Me surprise released last Friday — its chorus might objectify the girl that’s mentioned. It might degrade or sully or hit her from the back. It might even do her harm. (From Juice WRLD’s “Candles:” “Do your worst / I’ve come to the conclusion I can’t kill you if I kill you first.”) Polo G has other things to worry about. He blazes past the girl in “Pop Out’s” orbit. It’s one of many moments on Die A Legend’s 41 minutes that prove toxicity’s a choice, not a scene’s reckless hallmark.
Let’s examine that scene for a moment. In a terrific piece for Stereogum on SoundCloud rap (which was Polo G’s come up) and its toxic masculinity streak, Tom Breihan noted the following:
“It’s not just that these guys objectify women, that they talk about fucking with mechanical joylessness that all but ignores the women they’re supposedly fucking. That’s been happening in rap for decades…But the SoundCloud rap kids are doing something else. They’re not treating women as objects; they’re treating them as actively hostile forces. Every broken heart, every wounded feeling, is the fault of some conniving, disloyal, unfaithful, manipulative woman. It’s a whole new generation of male rappers embracing their own victimhood.”
Since the moment I read this paragraph some months ago, I have been unable to miss what Breihan describes. And it’s rampant. If it’s not Polo G’s fellow Calmut Park rapper Calboy dropping a gaslight-y anthem called “Adam & Eve,” it’s Lil Skies saying he likes good girls because “they do what he says.” It’s YNW Melly blaming a “girl” for his mixed personalities (Melly is awaiting trial in a double murder case). By extension, its Chris Brown scoring a smash hit this past weekend twelve years after he smashed Rihanna’s face with a car door. SoundCloud rap’s victimization steak has become more than an incubator for new toxicity — it’s a NICU for decades-old chauvinism.
Which is why it’s really notable that there is never a moment on all of Die A Legend in which Polo G plays victim. Not one. Not in the face of heartbreak, not in life, not when confronting Chicago’s rank police force. On “Effortless,” he casually vivisects our court system. Over the course of “Lost Files,” he eviscerates everything. No one is spared — not the law, not family, not friends. “I ain’t have shit / You wasn’t in the list of numbers I could dial,” G seethes “I wanna just throw in the towel…That’s just somethin’ that I really can’t allow.” It’s somehow more a statement of fact that brag as Polo spits it. The resolve reminds me less of SoundCloud stalwarts and more of “32” by the primarily African American punk group Soul Glo off their recent THE N***A IN ME IS ME. On that barnburner. vocalist Pierce Jordan screams “We finna let the blood flow out the wine glass. No more selling off our trauma just to eat trash, or letting you deny the past to swerve the backlash.” That’s Die A Legend’s M.O. too — its brutally honest, and absolutely disinterested in demonizing another for survival or self-aggrandizement.
Legend’s steely-eyed confidence on display there is more than an outlier among the male practitioners of Cloud Rap: it’s uncommon amongst Chicago hip hop royalty, whose first ballot members include Lupe and Chance but also monsters like (sigh:) R. Kelly. Yes: it’s ludicrous to elevate Polo G based on the low bar that is a sex criminal, but honestly? I’m doing it. I’m from a part of Chicago not far from Calmut Park. I’ve dated multiple survivors of sexual assault. So I’ve seen with my own eyes how hard the Windy City can be and how triggering even the tiniest debasement of a woman’s body can be. Given that? Polo G gives me hope. His circumstance and narratives humble me. The humanity he offers is emboldening. And as someone who wears a Chicago Bulls jacket most days of the week, I’m grateful to add his voice to the complicated chorus that is the Chi town scene. I’m overjoyed to support any artist who tackles his troubles through that most radical of mediums: self-love. When G describes his prison sentence in the “Through da Storm’s” first thirty seconds, its with uncommon gentleness: “Talkin’ to my lil’ sister, phone calls through Securus / Walk in court in them shackles, see my mama, her eyes tearin’ / Tryna work towards these blessings but the devil keep interfering /Everybody go through something, it’s all about perseverance”
To be clear: not all SoundCloud rappers are myoginists. What’s more, there are many women not only rapping under that genre tag but thriving within it (by my count: Rico Nasty, Cupcakke, Kodie Shane, and even Megan Thee Stallion to an extent). That doesn’t dull the impact of what Polo G accomplishes here, by design or not. As of Monday June 10th, “Pop Out” was one of Apple Music’s ten most streamed songs globally and steadily climbing the Billboard charts. Hours earlier, Ali Stroker became the first wheelchair-bound actress to win a Tony. This child went viral celebrating it. Viability and representation matter, whether through what you accomplish or don’t say on a song. We are lucky Polo G is climbing towards the spotlight. Long may it shine on him.
