Thirteendegrees on New Chicago and Clique City Vol. 2

Thirteendegrees is currently participating in one of hip-hop’s most time-honored traditions — he’s lying straight to my face. We’re in the basement greenroom at Reggies sitting next to each other on a couch after an electric showcase of New Chicago talent, now culminating in a dynamic performance by the rapper of indeterminate age wearing a Moncler vest and a backwards snapback over his shoulder length dreads. Near the end of his set, Thirteen will tell the audience that he made “every song” on his vintage smartphone. After the show, I inquire if he’s using Voice Memos and he says, “I’m using BandLab on there.”

“I didn’t even know you could put BandLab on an iPhone 4,” I laugh. “Maaaan, what’s that word? I’m really in my element man,” Thirteen replies. “This ain’t no fake, this ain’t no filter, pushing a narrative. This really me.”

In a way, I believe him. Rap has always been about being Real and Authentic, but that shouldn’t be confused with being Factual or even True (BandLab acquired the app known as Composr in 2016; the iPhone 5 was launched in 2012, with the iPhone 4 being discontinued in 2013). The difference, though small, is crucial. Consider Thirteen part of a storied lineage of outlandish exaggerators, right up there with Westside Gunn and Aubrey Graham. He doesn’t need to pull out a modern iPhone for us to know he obviously has one, and it would be insane if the Nike Yeezy Air 1s he’s wearing were actually authentic. The point isn’t hoodwinking listeners, but rather hamming it up for the camera.

That might sound silly, and it is, but there’s a depth to Thirteendegrees’s revival of 2014 sounds and aesthetics that prior years of indie sleaze recycling have sorely lacked. Hit play on his January tape Clique City Vol. 2 and you might wonder if you accidentally turned on some pre-Barter 6 Young Thug, but these tracks never quite lapse into cosplay (even if the cover is a straight Santigold rip). The instrumentals range from pop punk fusion (“Talkin 2 Much”) to vintage YMCMB synths (“Supa Hot Girlz”), though the bulk of the record still leans toward Atlantan trap (“13 Backshotz”). Naturally, there’s an earworm ode to egirls (“Tumblr Modelz”), but the best song might be the closer “No Wallz” — Thirteen’s murmured melodies slither and soar across the moody backdrop.

“Everything comes from something, it’s just about how you twist it,” he explains later. “Yes, you know my inspo, but you can’t pinpoint it, because I’m still pulling from so many different cultures, so many different eras.”

Thirteen isn’t the only contemporary rapper drawing on the sound of early-2010s Thug — YSL-signees 1300SAINT and Nine Vicious are essentially Jeffrey mini-me’s, with far less stylistic variation and uninspired visuals — but his Tumblr-inflected synthesis keeps things feeling fresh-if-familiar. Thirteen’s off-kilter melange of influences, combined with his ear for particularly memorable loops and hooks, tilts his tunes towards dance and pop music, appealing to a broader audience. Case in point: although much of the crowd was the standard subset of male underground rap fans, there was a small contingent of scene girls, including a trio of fans selling bootleg zines about Thirteen and other rappers, and one enterprising individual who arrived in a full-body fursuit. A few days later, his manager will text me, “the show was completely sold out,” though I’m mildly skeptical (perhaps some ticketholders had to bail last minute). But whatever the hard sales numbers, the crowd was energetic and responsive, moshing and screaming along with abandon.

During an early set, a friend counted no less than 11 cameras filming Da Villain as the crowd bounced along politely, which perhaps spoke to the night’s ethos — the real concert was the one that would be frozen and disseminated to nonlocal fans, not the one happening in front of us right now. But that shouldn’t be confused for a lack of enthusiasm or energy on the ground.

I was thrilled to feel my ribcage vibrate when Zootzie took the stage, his rounded 808s denser than neutron stars, and Lil2Posh ecstatically served cunt, his aura landing somewhere between Sahbabii and Prince; I wish he had rapped along to more of his new tape Fiesta Boy, as opposed to lip-syncing and Fortnite emoting, but it was still a swaggy presentation for swaggy music (Close enough — welcome back, Sicko Mobb).

Though he performed before Posh and Thirteen, the real star of the show was kels!, whose fans were thunderously chanting his name before he ever took the stage. When he did, the venue went nuclear, reacting even harder than they would for more popular songs later on. He was wearing a cheetah print button-down polo and matching shorts, with a pair of ski goggles perched askance on his head; at one point, he jumped into the crowd, surfed back onstage, then pretended to pass out and have a seizure as if overwhelmed by the crowd’s enthusiasm. This might have come off corny if it wasn’t overwhelmingly earned — I ended up recording pretty much every song in his set.

By the time Thirteendegrees took the stage, the crowd was suitably amped up, and the rapper was more than happy to deliver, maniacally bellowing through “Chinchilla” and bringing Lil2Posh out for “#DoYoDance.” He opened and closed his set with breakout hit “Da Problem Solva,” which seemed to get the biggest response of the night — something about those repurposed house synths strikes a primal chord in the brain.

After the show, I chatted with Thirteendegrees about getting inspiration from Tumblr, keeping his sound fresh, and his style advice for the modern man.

The FADER: Tell me about where you grew up, how old you are, and how you started making music.

Thirteendegrees: I really didn't come from a musical background. None of my folks really made music, so it was just me surfing on the web for inspiration. I’m out Southside of Chicago, but you know Southside, just Chicago in general is seen as street shit, drill shit. So I be on my weird boy shit you know? Well, it’s not weird, but unique and not normal.

I wanted to hear a little more about where you’re drawing your inspiration from and what’s on your mood boards.

I'm not gonna tell people my swag, but it's like, I know a way where I can tap on the page and go all the way straight down with all the scrolling. So I'm doing that every single day. Like, I'm not even recording music, it could be a week of just me researching shit, just on Tumblr, digging up old YouTube videos from however long ago, and just really studying the OGs and like the people that came before me.

When you think about the people who came before you, or the OGs, who are musicians or fashion people that have a vision that you respect?

Musically right now, like, as we speak, probably Your Stepdad. I be telling people, he the blueprint. He the one that everybody had eyes on, so he gave everybody in the Raq motivation you know, to get on they shit. But I guess, to go historically, obviously like, the Keef’s, the Ye’s. Yeah, that's about it. I be fucking with Sicko Mobb too.

Where do you buy your clothes?

Shit, I can't give n***as the sauce, but shit, just know I'm out here shopping every day man, for the newest fit. And don't even think I gotta blow a bag, like, I can get shit wherever I get shit, you know, I get shit off Amazon, I get shit off the thrift store. I don't really care for the name brand stuff, how much it costs. It's just about “who are you?” type shit to really pull a fit off.

A lot of artists are retooling old sounds, or, in the least derogatory way possible, doing nostalgia plays, right? You're somebody who has a fresh take on [an older] sound, the same with Lil2Posh [and Sicko Mobb]. But there are a lot of people who don't have a fresh take, and so I'm curious how you think about making sure stuff sounds new.

They be saying “nostalgia” like it ain’t creative but you gotta think everybody, even the Carti’s and the Ye’s, they pull something from some type of era and make it theirs. So I hate this way that people say “it’s nostalgia, it’s not creative,” okay like -- nobody’s out here, the most creative person ain’t gonna do this and then it’s completely original.

Everything comes from something, it’s just about how you twist it. So going to my recording process, or just what I do, yes, you know my inspo, but you can’t pinpoint it, because I’m still pulling from so many different cultures, so many different eras. So it’s like, this new age, they see something and they just call it out real fast. So that’s one thing, I hate that but at the same time, it gave me confidence. I just keep shitting on everybody, I don’t care who’s saying whatever. And I know deep down that I’m making it original as possible, definitely.

How old were you when you started making music, and what were your early songs like?

I started making music just two [or] three years ago. I was just talking to this girl from Atlanta, and we were looking at [the] Chicago underground. And the last big artist was obviously the LUCKIs and the Juice WRLDs. And we just looking right now like, “it ain’t one that’s finna burst” type shit. So it’s like damn, this lane, I can really get into it and see what I can do with it. Obviously I love music — it was not just a clout thing or trying to get up. I really love music, and it just made sense.

Clique City Vol. 2 got taken down off streaming earlier this year. What was that all about?

Man, it's like a hacker or someone just trying to take my stuff down, which is, you know, it's a good thing, but bad thing, you feel me? My creative, my art, my money, like what the fuck? It’s cool [though] man, that’s how you know you really doing something with yourself, when people try to take you down.

Last summer, you guys were pushing the song “U DA BEST,” which got served to me a bunch on IG Reels. How are you approaching, not just social media, but reaching new fans in general?

The reason you see it on IG is cause shit, I used my own damn money! These pages, they create, they stick with a narrative, and they just spin it ‘til they can’t no more. Or they just go with people that sound just alike. So with my sound, it’s different from all the underground artists type shit. So I had to take matters in my own hands. These IG pages, these Twitter pages, they never seen no shit like this before in the underground space. So you gotta push it to these folks. And then once it clicks, it clicks, and it clicked for me.

What are your style tips for 2025?

First style tip is get in the gym. Not even just with shape, [though] obviously with shape. But the gym can give you fresh ideas, it can take you out of a vulnerable place. If you scared to put yourself out there, if you mad about something, the gym always the cleanse --

What do you be doing at the gym?

Yo, man, I be doing pull ups, jumps, yoga, all that. It’s really on some mental like, this how I create. Getting a little sweaty.

Second tip, on some real clothes stuff, it’s just don’t fit trends. I know that's cliche to say, but we got TikTok and social media all the time have everybody on their phone. So it's more likely people that look on the internet can get influenced, and then they just start acting like each other, and it's safe.

I didn't know [my looks were] gonna get liked. I just feel like, go against the grain how you feel and just go with that shit. If it don't hit, it don't hit. But eventually people gonna respect you.

Then the third one I can give them... Fuck all that all black man, we past the OPIUM movement. Shoutout OPIUM though, but we past that man. Some of y’all people [don’t] even really act like that, how y’all dress, so dress how you really are bro, forreal.