Nebraska native Charlie Curtis-Beard, who moved here for school and still attends Columbia College, is one of Chicago’s most promising young MCs. His debut, Childish, was among the best overlooked local hip-hop releases of 2016, and on Friday he drops his second full-length, Existentialism on Lake Shore Drive. In its loose narrative, framed by dramatized phone messages, Curtis-Beard holes up at home while his friends have a wild night out. “I just wanted to tell the story of going out to pointless parties and staying locked in my room, from both sides,” he says. It’s an ambitious, tender album full of killer beats—”Fried Chicken” is playfully self-critical, and “Can’t See Clear” is my favorite hip-house track since Vic Mensa’s “Down on My Luck.”
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