Rhymefest w/ Mikkey Halsted and Adebisi

Beating Eminem in a freestyle battle wasn’t enough to instantly establish Chicago rapper Rhymefest, who worked as a university janitor for years after his storied Scribble Jam victory until his real breakthrough came when he co-wrote the Grammy-winning “Jesus Walks” with Kanye West. Rhymefest’s 2006 debut album, Blue Collar, earned him a critical following, and mixtapes with super-producer Mark Ronson, like last year’s Michael Jackson-themed Man in the Mirror, furthered his reputation. Rhymefest threw fans for a loop this year, though, with a mixtape that sounds like the first shots of a potentially bloody culture war. El Che: The Manual Mixtape baits progressive-minded hipster and backpack rap fans with its brazen homophobia, which Rhymefest is suddenly flaunting as loudly as Fred Phelps outside a production of The Laramie Project. At times it’s hard to tell whether Rhymefest’s hateful new lyrical bent is part of some kind of publicity-garnering, Bruno-esque social experiment, or whether one of the underground’s most respected rappers really has turned into one of the scene’s biggest bigots.