“Right now, I’m just trying to live a little more selfishly,” said Chella Holcomb, who raps as Chella H. Living “more selfishly” in her case means diving in head first for her latest musical project, a cheeky new single, “No Good,” and a full-length project titled “Above Water.”
Never one to settle into the background, Holcomb has kept busy in the time between projects. Most recently, she opened Luv Handles, a customization shop in Bronzeville. “I was given the store and I was like, ‘I can do whatever I want,’ so I researched what was needed in the community, and we didn’t have no custom T-shirts, gifts in the black community, in Bronzeville,” she said. “And I grew up in this area, so I was like, I want to build the block back.”
Building the block back also means building up her own people. Besides running the Str8drop Entertainment label, she also co-hosts the Str8dropUncut podcast, which now has more than 11,000 subscribers and counting.
“My conversations are always interesting. I’m known for keeping it real, for being blunt. Everybody knows that,” Holcomb said. “I also wanted to provide a platform where we can just run what goes on. It’s not that many outlets like that. It’s a lot of politics, so I wanted to build our own people, to allow the underground people and the bigger people to be real.”
It’s no wonder she’s known as the other first lady of Chicago.
But after devoting much of her time to building up the community, Holcomb is now eager to add some of her freshest contributions to the musical community, too. This moment has been a long time coming. Although her childhood was not ideal — with an absent father and a mother battling drug addiction — she never let her circumstances hinder her goals or talents. For one, storytelling came easily.
“I didn’t really like school like that, but I was always good when it came to writing stories. Fiction, nonfiction, I’ve just always been a good writer,” she said. Combined with her love of music, writing rap was a natural fit. “I had a lot of (things) to talk about. I left home early. I had my own crib … I was always just special,” she said.
And that special quality will be on display with the release of “Above Water.” Largely produced by Get Em Louie and written entirely by Holcomb herself, Holcomb said the project is about her being a mermaid and what that means for women as a whole.
“A mermaid is a beautiful survivor that can maneuver through anything and remain above the water at all times. I think a lot of women don’t know that they’re mermaids,” she said. “Mermaids do exist, so I’m just trying to inform the people on what we are: mermaid goddesses. We not Barbies. We not unicorns. We ain’t got (stuff) in our foreheads. We stay above water.”
“No Good,” the first single from the project, is a confession of sorts. Not necessarily of her own actions, but of how women can sometimes be hypocritical when dealing with their partners.
“I think women put too much power into relationships and too much power into men. Nobody’s perfect,” said Holcomb.
Written last summer while listening to beats in her car (her preferred method of writing songs), the accompanying video, featuring an appearance by celebrated rapper Trina, is as hilarious, wild and fun as the song itself.
“I like to tell stories and I like to entertain,” she said. “Female artists, that’s what we’re doing. We’re being funny, we’re entertaining, and we’re keeping it a hundred.”
Britt Julious is a freelance writer.
ct-arts@chicagotribune.com
Twitter @chitribent
When: 4 p.m. Sunday
Where: Club Play Bar & Grill, 15420 Dixie Highway, Harvey
Tickets: Free (21+); facebook.com/club-play
![“Let the music do the talking,” sang Phish vocalist-guitarist Trey Anastasio at the outset of the band’s concert Saturday at the Sphere in Las Vegas. Normally, hearing that advice from a well-disciplined virtuoso who seemingly never tires of the stage and worships the groove would pass without a hint of potential irony. However, given the group was not even one minute into the third of its sold-out four-night stand at the $2.3 billion dome — expressly devised to push sensory boundaries to previously uncharted limits — one couldn’t help wonder how seriously Phish would take its own instruction. Turns out […]](https://www.chicagotribune.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/CTC-L-ENT-PHISH-04-e1713888536637.jpg?w=620 "“Let the music do the talking,” sang Phish vocalist-guitarist Trey Anastasio at the outset of the band’s concert Saturday at the Sphere in Las Vegas. Normally, hearing that advice from a well-disciplined virtuoso who seemingly never tires of the stage and worships the groove would pass without a hint of potential irony. However, given the group was not even one minute into the third of its sold-out four-night stand at the $2.3 billion dome — expressly devised to push sensory boundaries to previously uncharted limits — one couldn’t help wonder how seriously Phish would take its own instruction. Turns out […]")
