Lucki Eck$, better known as simply “Lucki” made waves in early 2014 in the world of underground rap with his mixtape Alternative Trap that included 13 tracks and a run time of 45 minutes and 20 seconds. By way of this project, Lucki propelled himself into a position of relevancy (somewhat), where he has remained for the past few years, releasing a consistent slew of hazy and lazily delivered yet lyrically precise tapes that have been well-received among a specific group of people.
This respectable amount of recognition that Lucki attained allowed him to work with some well-known artists such as FKA Twigs, Danny Brown, and Acid Rap frontman Chance the Rapper. Riding the hype off of his debut, Lucki dropped his second project, Body High, in August of 2014. This tape placed Lucki as one of the frontmen of the Chicago underground scene, later putting him in position to work with Chance the Rapper himself on a track titled “Stevie Wonder.”
Coming into 2015, Lucki released another tape entitled X that featured the most drug-induced version of the young rapper that we’ve seen thus far. However, Lucki would soon trace back his steps, tweeting about how bad he thought X had been, apologizing to fans, and saying that he would release music in an extremely consistent manner in order to make up for the flop that he thought X was.
In my opinion, X wasn’t the failure that he made it out to be. Though it wasn’t his best effort at the time that it released, it still had a few great tracks such as “Bird Gang,” “Lowlife,” “Still Steal,” and “Finesse 2.” Following X, Lucki sporadically released a sequence of freestyles which he called “freewaves” that he would eventually compile into a 10-track EP titled Freewave EP. His delivery within these tracks was laid back, relaxed, and it seemed as if Lucki was in a more upbeat mood than he had been on his previous offerings. However, he would transition into a darker state than ever before in the near future.
After seeing the release of a few new singles, the year of 2016 would include a brand new EP from Lucki, Son of Sam. Named after the notorious criminal and featuring cover art from the criminal’s writing, the tone of this project was that of a more troubled, under the influence, and unhappy Lucki than we’d seen in the past. However, this switch in mood did not take away from the quality of Lucki’s work, seeing as his 2016 offering was one of the best delivered pieces of work that we’ve seen from the young Chicago emcee. From beats, to lyrics, to aesthetic, Lucki is getting better every day and will soon be putting Chicago underground rap in the spotlight.