The Break Presents: AzChike

Time is of the essence for AzChike. Since 2013, the 24-year old has tried to make every moment count. Prior to being known for his storytelling abilities and bops like “Burn Rubber Again” and “Licked Up,” the rapper, who has drawn comparisons to mid-2000s Lil Wayne and 2019 XXL Freshman Blueface, began his career as a what he describes as a conscious rapper. Once he shifted gears (and quit his day job), however, he really started to get the party jumping.

AzChike spent a few years carving out a name for himself and his four-member AzCult squad with loosies like “Jugg” and “Ray Charles” and EPs such as Cult Up and Chike the Great. The “Boss Up” rapper from South Central, Los Angeles, made some major noise in 2017 when his single “Burn Rubber Again”—which has since surpassed 13 million SoundCloud plays—started going up. Continuing to show out, the Shoreline Mafia-co-signed rapper dropped his first official mixtape, My World, and hit the Rolling Loud stage for the first time one year later.

As he continues to turn up and level up, AzChike foresees a bright future. The Machine Works/Atlantic Records-signed rapper, who has popped out on tracks alongside the likes of King Combs, Rucci and 1TakeJay, recently delivered his 14-track debut album, Rich & Ratchet and is slated to hit the road with his “Bleed Em” collaborator for their joint Welcome To The Party x Rich & Ratchet Part 2 tour. Not long after he wraps up the multi-city trek, he's set to hit the road again with the homies in support of Shoreline Mafia’s forthcoming Paid In Full tour.

Take a wild ride on the west side and learn more about AzChike in XXL's The Break.

Age: 24

Hometown: South Central, L.A.

My style’s been compared to: “I get compared to 21 Savage a lot. I think it’s because of how deep our voice[s are]. The closest comparison they gon’ make is Blueface because he’s the first to blow up out of L.A. like that. So, they kind of get a sense of the cadence of how we rapping already, but it’s not the same thing. That’s pretty much it. This L.A. shit is new to everybody. It ain’t been no shit like this out of L.A. Niggas are not rapping like this. There’s no real comparisons. It’s too fresh.”

My standout records are: “'Burn Rubber Again,' 'Strapped Up,' 'Licked Up' and 'Big Chop.'"

My most slept-on songs are: “I would lowkey say 'How.' I played it for some New York homies and they said it’s my best-structured song. It’s so easy to be everywhere with a song and talk about bitches and money or whatever, but I stayed on subject from the verses to the hook. It was a good-ass song to me. It’s not what I usually do. It’s kind of serious, lowkey motivational Mozzy-type shit.”

My standout moments to date have been: “Getting signed; that was amazing. It was a great feeling. Meeting Shoreline Mafia was definitely a moment for me. Making my first $100,000 by myself, without the label, straight off of music. I didn’t get $100,000 all at once, but within an eight- to 10-month span, it was $100k.”

Most people don’t know: “I’m conscious as a motherfucker and I will read your aura in your face with your bad energy-having ass. I be on the deep side of things. A nigga be having fun, but that’s how I found myself to even get to this point. I believe in meditation. I believe in the universe and higher powers and shit like that. I believe in being spiritually right. Fuck everything else. If you’re spiritually right and you fuck with you, you’re going to be able to fuck with everybody else.”

I’m going to blow up because: “This was planned. I wanted to do this for a very long time. This is it for me. I don’t have shit else. Ain’t no falling off. I have no other options. I went through too many ups and downs to fold right now.”

I’m going to be the next: “Inspirational thing to touch this whole rap shit. That’s the whole goal. The money is cool. It takes care of things and gets you positioned for other things, but my whole thing is just to have impact and make motherfuckers feel me. I want the energy to be unbearable when I’m around and when you’re done seeing me, you’re going to do some great shit."

Follow AzChike on Instagram and SoundCloud.

Standouts:

“Burn Rubber Again”

“Strapped Up”

“Big Chop”

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