INTERVIEW: Cabrini Green's finest SG Ali talks growing up, music, and more

Rising Chicago artist SG Ali has taken the music scene by storm upon her arrival in 2019. Since then, Ali has showcased her talent and potential with successful tracks like, “All The Smoke” and “Drank on The Block,” which ultimately garnished the attention from artists such as Mozzy, who hopped on the remix to her song, “Wicked”. SG Ali uses her experience of growing up in the streets of Chicago as an influence for her pain-style music that expresses her lifestyle and a totem promise for future success for herself and those around her. Ali’s music is deep-cutting, raw, and unfiltered, making Ali the next face and voice of the streets.

We were lucky enough to get a chance to sit down and talk with the Chicago rapper about her journey in music, making a name for herself, and more.

Sparky: Where you from?

SG Ali: I'm from Chicago, from the Near North Side and Cabrini Green projects, born and raised.

Sparky: How was it growing up there? What Influence did it have on your music?

SG Ali: How it was growing up, it wasn't really nothing compared to how today is. I really watched stuff go from good and bad, not just from my area but my city. So, growing up in the projects, shit we was like one big family. It was structure and it was rules that everybody went by, you know, it was safe, well It was safer. To this day I still feel safe in my hood, but you know, things happen. But yeah, it was safe growing up and it was struggle but we didn't make it look like that. You go into these projects then you go into the cribs and when we was there, our parents had that shit looking like a mansion. So, it's like you couldn't really tell we were in the projects, we just know we lived in the projects, its where we’re from, but we was happy.

Sparky: Why did you start making music and when?

SG Ali: I just loved music so much growing up like my grandma used to have to unplug the computer because I would spend the whole 24 hours on it and all you would hear is YouTube. I was a big YouTube kid growing up, but I was mostly a poetic writer. I was writing poems all through elementary and shit and then my school that I went to was an art school and by the 5th grade, I was able to be in this thing called Friday Cool. They see your talent and what you're good at; I knew how to play drums and I knew how to play the piano, make a beat and shit like that but I never had wrote a rap. Still to this day I've never wrote a rap. Every time I did rap, it was freestyle off my head and I always performed in front of the school, my mom, my daddy, everybody. Then one day I just stopped myself Like, ‘damn, I write poems, what if I sit down and write a rap?’ So, that's when it came in, and now I'm better with writing then I am freestyling. With freestyling, I was good, now I'm more of a writer. So that's where it came about. I just naturally love music.

Sparky: Did you always know you had talent in writing?

SG Ali: Honestly, I was scared to show it but naturally I just knew that I knew how to rhyme. I never wrote a poem without rhyming, that's what made it fun. So, I just start putting it on beats but I never even used to write to beats. I used to literally just acapella and go to a producer in my hood and hum it to them, and then they would make me a beat, that's how I used to write my songs.

Sparky: All The Smoke was the song that really put you on the map and Mozzy took notice who eventually hopped on the remix for your song “Wicked”. How did that connection happen?

SG Ali: I think he commented on it on my Instagram first showing me some support and I came back like ‘ganging’ 'cause that's his shit, you know? But then my old team got to talkin and they was like ‘man he wanna do a remix to your shit’, so you know, I was with it, I was fuckin with it, I was with it to the T. He just commented on something else recently, he still be showing me love.

Sparky: You've only dropped three singles this year, and you've already gained a lot of attention from them. Did you expect that?

SG Ali: I really didn't think that would happen because the way I rap and talk, some people don't really listen to what rappers and artists like me gotta say, so it really was a surprise that I got a lot of people rocking with me. I'm really trying to change the game. I'm trying to change the weather with being yourself and all real authentic shit. So, when the love came it just really made me more eager. I'd be more ready to work when I see people in the comments and the good shit they be saying about me, it make me thirsty like to make more music, I be eager so I be trying to keep it coming. So, as long as I got that, they my motivation and that shit be motivating me especially when there's people outside out of your hood supporting because I'm so used to my hood, that's the main people I get love from which is the best thing because my city so full of hate, so, to see people show me love that shit feel great, it really motivate me.

Sparky: What would you say like your musical influences are?

SG Ali: I’m so drill like I know I’m a drill rapper and what influences that is just the shit I go through. Sometimes I could honestly say when I'm writing a song and I don't got no motivation, I would go to Instagram and I know Instagram gonna show me hella artists achievements, what they doing, all the love they gettin and I be like, “Okay you gotta be like that 'cause now you wasting time, you shouldn't be scrolling” to myself, you feel me? Shit like that influence me but mostly my daily struggle, my everyday life influenced me, I can't rap about nothing I don't go through or nothing I've never seen or been around so that's why some probably think a lot of my shit sound the same, but it'll change in due time because I rap about what's going on at the moment and what's going on in my life and what I'm seeing. I usually go to a beat, then it’s whatever the beat do, I'm not coming to no studio where my mind made up unless I already wrote, so that's not how I even work.

Sparky: Are you working on anything currently?

SG Ali: Yes, definitely be expecting a project for me for sure this summer. It'll be my very first one, so I'm trying to make this one special and put my all into it. So that's why I'm going to Cali, to put a couple of finishing touches together. I wanna make this unforgettable, people been waiting on me for years to drop a mixtape or album and I always sold them a dream but it's finally happening now.

Sparky: How has the beginning of stardom as an artist been?

SG Ali: I mean, I've been at the beginning for a minute. So it's like in my city, that's where my stardom really started. I didn't start realizing until I be too loose moving and not careful with myself and people would be steady walking up on me and shit and then that's when I started realizing. That was around the time I did a song called “Could Have Made It.” After I dropped that song, that's when my stardom really started. But, this still the beginning because I didn't really do nothing yet, so I got used to it and I'm still only used to it in my city. I'm not used to it nowhere else, so it's still the start. But it's gonna be big one day so come back to me on that question later.

Sparky: When you’re making music, how do you want people to feel when they listen? Who do you make music for?

SG Ali: Sometimes people get the feeling that I be preaching in my songs, and I'm cool with that because I could take that. I do be trying to preach to the youth because most of these times my biggest fans is fucking kids. I go through my DM’s and see and it’s kids that are on the street that they see me and they be showing me love and I'll be like, ‘what the fuck?’ What messed my mind up a lot is that it be little boys, it don't be a lot of little girls, it be little boys so if I got them listening then I probably gotta be doing shit a little different. But I still try to be authentic with what I rap about, I still be around this shit but I don't wanna get people mixed vibes so I make music for everybody. I'm like a fucking variety pack. Like, however you feeling I got something for you. But mostly I've been wanting to just get it to the youth head to just be themselves, that's how I try to be 'cause a lot of these days, these rappers, they just be misleading. Rappers really got the most power nowadays to get people to listen and they don't even try to steer kids in the right way. It be all type of bullshit. Ima still give you my gangster side, but I don't overly talk and do that I’m more so just trying to lift people up in my songs and get them where when they listening to my music, you would probably be on a treadmill or probably on a basketball court and you feeling like my shit be motivation, like don't give up, 'cause that's what I gotta tell myself. So it's music for people like me.

Sparky: Have other people came out of Cabrini Projects in music too?

SG Ali: We got a lot of talent, but it’s like I’m the only one that's doing something to get there. I could say one reason is because my homies, some of them never left the hood. When the buildings was torn down, it was all they knew, but me, that's not all I knew. I know my city, I got to the South side, I got to the West side, I got to the East Side and everywhere I went everybody knew I rapped. Some either hated me, some either loved me. So, when I do drop, I got everybody from every set out of the fucken town, the city be tapping into my shit. I know how to rap about all problems that go around the city, I don't just talk about shit that go on in Cabrini. But that's probably why I'm kind of the face of Cabrini right now with the music. I don’t embrace that a lot either, but yeah.

Speed Round:

What is the best lowkey food spot in Chicago?

Portillos

What is one song that reminds you of your childhood or growing up?

“Stanky Leg”

If you could visit anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?

Barcelona. I had did a project on it one time in high school and I always said I wanted to go there 'cause it's pretty as fuck and the stuff I learned about the place really interested me, so I always keep it in the back of my head

What's your dream collaboration?

I always said that I ain't made it till I got a song with Future.

What's your sign?

Taurus

Written and Interviewed By Izzabella Gonzalez

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