After a few months hiatus, me and the rest of the team over here at TheHipHopDemocrat have decided to once again bring back our New Artist Spotlight. After last time highlighting upcoming new Westcoast artist Mickey Taelor, we have decided to bring it back home to Chicago with our latest feature, PHENOM. Thus joining Prophet Amen Ra as the only other Chicago artist to be featured in our series so far. An emcee, national spoken word artist and youth mentor, PHENOM has actually been around since 2009, if not longer than that, hitting stages across America with established artists the likes of Mos Def to Erykah Badu and fellow Chicagoans Common and Lupe Fiasco. With influences from the likes of Hip-Hop greats and legendary artists like Rakim, Nas, Black Thought of The Legendary Roots Crew, the aforementioned Common and even Bob Marley, this Chicago native’s wordplay ability and soulfulness is very influenced from them. His diverse style, which blends many musical genres from Afrobeat to Deep House, Reggae, GoGo, Soul and Spoken Word being described as Free-Hop. A lot of it even being displayed on PHENOM’s latest track, LOVED Onez, which really showcases his ability to give such great wordplay and spoken word abilities, while also showing his drive for heartfelt soul records too, which touch more than just any old Hip-Hop audience. Going beyond Hip-Hop. LOVED Onez is this Chicago native’s heartfelt message and record to anybody who has ever lost a loved one and/or going through the struggles of missing someone, whether it be due to the afterlife, jail or whatever else maybe the case. The records hook, “Sending LOVE out to all those LOVED Onez who lost LOVED Onez cause I lost LOVED Onez/We all we got”, really hitting home for many and why PHENOM continues to gain fans, who first just got really hip to this great Chicago talent with the release of his mostly critically acclaimed album, I Didn’t Come I Was Sent, which was released just last year and can be heard here. You can listen to the heartfelt record from PHENOM dedicated to one of his own lost friends, Brother Mike, below and look forward to a lot more to come from this rising emcee and poet in the near future, of what is sure to be a very stellar career.