Lou Era • PayPhone Freestyle

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Directed by Shutterhaus Chicago

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Lou Era has been an exciting cat to watch in Chicago this last year. He's been putting out music for a minute now, first dropping his Code Red EP last winter. He really came into his own this summer with the Eight EP, a dark and lit project that Lou Era confidently strolled through, his simultaneously monotone but charismatic raps leading the way. Since then, his rate of releases has been slow and steady, and most importantly the quality has stayed high. No shortcuts for Lou.

Now we have "Payphone Freestyle", and it's one of his best tracks to date (and his first video in a minute). The track impresses on two fronts; first, Lou Era's rapping. As mentioned before, he's got a lackadaisical flow to some extent, but it's a decoy. As he goes deeper into the track, the intensity gets higher and higher. The second stunt Lou throws in is the production; as impressive as his rhymes is the beat, dreamy at first then getting weirder with each sonic flourish the producer throws in. We've slept on Lou Era before. The time for that is over. Lou Era's "PayPhone Freestyle" visual is calling now.