Walking down 64th Street toward Honore Street, before anything, you notice the long rows of colorful houses with crisp green grass and trees. With the vibrant and lush green gardens and lawns, it’s a different picture of Englewood than some people might think.
It’s the home base for the Imagine Englewood If Peace Campus, a community center that includes five houses, two basketball courts, a community garden and a nature playlot. The nonprofit Imagine Englewood If owns and operates the Peace Campus, and it’s one of “beautiful things happening” in the neighborhood, said Heavy Crownz, rapper, farmer and director of programs at the Englewood-based nonprofit.
“I’m in Englewood every day, and I don’t see violence, bro. I don’t. But for someone else, maybe their experience is different,” said Heavy Crownz.
On a cool and breezy afternoon, Heavy Crownz walks among the veggies and herbs sprouting in the organized rows of garden beds in the Imagination House garden. A little girl, residents and a staff member greet him.
“Peace, peace,” he replies with a big smile. A friendly, black and white cat named Oreo clings by his side.
His debut album, “Trench Baby Turned Farmer,” self-released in March, is a labor of love that tells a story about how people grow in the harsh conditions that many like him come from. Songs like “Englewood In ‘09” and the Rhymefest-assisted “Time Travelin’” represent the duality of griminess and consciousness that he pushes in his music. He’ll be performing in support of that album at his first headlining show at Lincoln Hall on May 22. Grammy Award-winning rapper Rhymefest and longtime ‘Ye collaborator GLC are among the many who are featured on “Trench Baby Turned Farmer.”
As Chicago slowly reopened amid the COVID-19 pandemic, gardening and nature were two things that he took seriously. While he was rapping for nearly a decade, he got into gardening later during a rough time in his life after the pandemic in 2022. His mother had given him a book about grace, which influenced him to think about the world like a tree, to accept the seasons and grow.
As he adopted an agricultural mindset, he, like all Chicago rappers, wanted to make his lifestyle true to what he was portraying in his music.
Rapper Heavy Crownz sits in the Imagine If Peace Garden in Englewood. While he was rapping for nearly a decade, he got into gardening later during a rough time in his life after the pandemic in 2022. His mother had given him a book about grace, which influenced him to think about the world like a tree, to accept the seasons and grow.
Giacomo Cain/Sun-Times
“When I was rapping about gardening [after the pandemic], my mentality had to change first. I felt like I needed to be doing it, needed to live it,” said Heavy Crownz, adding that it also helped him prepare for the current economic climate with rising food costs across grocery stores and restaurants.
He and his team members, Jai Kalondra and Bouhkepra Heqitef, teach neighborhood kids gardening skills, such as how to grow food and maintain a garden, the importance of being connected to local farmers in their neighborhood and being self-sufficient.
“You want to be able to have the confidence to grow your own food, grow your own greens,” he said.
He added, “I just continue to live my life centered around nature and gardening and farming. That’s a lifelong relationship, and that’s going to expand in different ways. I’ve only begun. We’re going to go a lot of places from here.”
Friday’s lineup features some of the best and brightest of Chicago’s hip-hop scene. From newcomers like Casino Trell to fellow veteran rapper, organizer and writer Bella Bahhs, Heavy Crownz’ show is highlighting a tightly knit community of rappers, some of whom he collaborated with for his debut album.
“Community is really important to me,” said Heavy Crownz. “I’m big on not only raising my boat, but allowing the tide of the Most High to raise other people’s boats. I live by the African Proverb, ‘If you want to go far, go together.’ And I want to go far. I didn’t want to do this alone.”
Having the drill pioneer King Louie is special to Heavy Crownz beyond the performance itself. To him, Louie is the epitome of what he means by being a “trench baby turned farmer.” In the early to mid-2010s, the “Live and Die in Chicago” rapper had one foot in the mainstream music industry and the other in the warring streets he struggled to leave behind. This decade finds Louie in a calmer place as he collaborates more with rising acts closer to the grounded, lyrical traditions of hip-hop than the younger era of drill rappers who have upped the ante on violence more than he ever did in his music.
“Louie is a pioneer. One of the first within the drill scene. Not what he meant then, but more so the ways I’ve been seeing him grow from afar. Because that’s the whole ethos of ‘Trench Baby Turned Farmer.’ Someone who could have been at the helm of something that was amazing, but destructive. But then they can grow and not be on that type of time. He deserves more flowers,” said Crownz.
Through his music and his work at Imagine Englewood If, his goal is to help undo the harmful narrative of Englewood as a violent neighborhood, to show the world that the neighborhood is growing and “beautiful things” are taking place there.
“I just want the world to know that Englewood is growing. … Beautiful things [are] happening. And in the next 10 years, people are going to want to raise their families in Englewood,” he said.