Chaepter is staying true in an industry that rewards the opposite
Being a musician today is hard. Of course, it always has been. But the music industry has changed drastically over the last 50 years—heck, even the last 10.
Today, it isn’t enough to simply make good music. Artists are expected to be content creators, social media managers, marketers, and performers all at once. Success is measured by followers, monthly listeners, and engagement rates just as often as the quality of the music itself. I’d argue today’s industry is built to serve the corporations more than the artists who give it life.
How do artists make music that’s authentic to who they are and build a fanbase without giving in to the standards of the industry? It’s a hard line to walk. But many musicians do. Chaepter is one of them.
I went to Friko’s Something Worth Waiting For album release show at Metro back in April. When the opening band, Chaepter, took the stage, I was immediately captivated.
One of my favorite things to do while watching opening sets is to watch the crowd. I like watching to see if the band can win them over.
Nobody is obligated to pay attention to an opener. It’s become widely accepted etiquette to do pretty much anything except give them your full attention.
But! That did not happen the night Chaepter was opening for Friko. As I looked around and saw a crowd locked in on the performance.
Chaepter’s set that night was a blast. People were moving, being loud, and enjoying the music. They played an incredibly solid set, and from the way the crowd responded, I would say that’s the collective consensus.
Wanting to learn more, I reached out to set up an interview with Chaepter Negro himself. I was fully expecting to write a story solidly about that show.
Instead, almost every question I asked turned into something else.
I (being a not-so-great interviewer) found myself continuously sharing my own experiences, asking completely different follow-up questions, and eventually, not even looking down at the outline I had prepared prior. And this is why I have now rewritten this article about five times.
I kept trying to write about that night at Metro, but every time I’d get into the depths of it, I felt like I was missing the whole point. What stayed with me the most from our talk actually had nothing to do with the show itself.
“The first songs I ever wrote were encouraged by a guidance counselor to help me process the passing of a friend.”
For little seventh-grade Chaepter, writing songs was a way for him to process grief. Music allowed him to “learn more about himself” and “mirror the world around him.” And that perspective still drives the way he creates music today.
I’ve had countless conversations with musicians emerging into the music scene, and so often those conversations eventually become “market, market, market.”
But with Chaepter, they never did.
Instead, it was more like “practice, practice, practice.” And “connect, connect, connect.”
We barely talked about followers or streaming numbers. We kept coming back to passion and community because that’s what has driven the band from the beginning.
Over the past four years, Chaepter has focused primarily on keeping their performances rooted in the DIY scene. They’ve toured the country playing in strangers’ basements instead of traditional venues.
“For DIY, it’s special that that show is happening in the first place.”
That’s the beauty of DIY. Those shows aren’t built around profit; they’re built around people. DIY shows create a space where people can gather and listen to music they care about without worrying about all the heavy statistics that come with venue shows.
And of course, on top of touring in basements, Chaepter also helps run a DIY venue out of his basement here in Chicago: Lowdown (my personal favorite DIY venue).
“Places like Metro need to exist in the same way DIY spaces do.”
Chaepter doesn’t prioritize DIY because they think traditional venues are the bearers of doom and evil; they do it because they love that environment and want to help keep it alive.
The DIY scene took a huge hit after COVID. And it is doing so much better now, but it’s still something a lot of us who love local music are actively fighting to preserve.
Not only does Chaepter keep their shows DIY-driven, but they also don’t release music on Spotify.
“Fuck Spotify” is what Chaepter yelled into the mic that night at Metro. I’m pretty sure it was also the moment I knew I wanted to write this article.
“Music being something you can just render five bucks and have the entire catalog— the whole history of every song— just available… It’s dystopian.”
Streaming has walked us right into a culture of convenience, and with that has come the issue of overconsumption. It sucks. And as Chaepter said, “Spotify especially leans into that.”
Open the Spotify app, and you’re immediately hit with slop: the most randomly generated playlists, “breakthrough” AI artists, and even company-created musicians who really aren’t real— just underpaid studio musicians making background noise for their “mood-generated” playlists.
Spotify’s platform isn’t built around providing a meaningful experience—it’s built around maximizing numbers. And that’s just touching the surface as to why Spotify sucks.
So for Chaepter, taking their music off Spotify “was really easy.”
If you’re invested in the music industry, you probably understand why Spotify is seen as the bearer of doom and evil. Artists have spent years pointing out how little they’re paid, and in return, Spotify just continues to control how their music is consumed. The numbers become more important than the people behind them. Songs become content. Artists become engagement statistics.
And what sucks is that for a lot of musicians, opting out isn’t really an option. Streaming runs the music industry. People don’t want to listen to physical media anymore, and having your album up for download exclusively on Bandcamp isn’t going to be enough for them to buy it if they don’t know who you are. If you want to reach new listeners, it’s pretty much expected of you to get your music up on all streaming platforms and market yourself all over social media.
And this is why I find Chaepter’s decision so admirable.
Here’s a band that’s still relatively early in its career, with countless potential fans left to discover them, willingly stepping away from one of the industry’s biggest platforms because it didn’t align with their beliefs.
Not releasing music on Spotify, running a DIY venue, and choosing basements over stages says so much about where these guys’ priorities are at: in the music and in the communities that connect with that music.
You can hear when an artist is making music because they have something to say, not because they’re following a trend. You can hear when an artist is making music to create a community rather than an algorithm. You can hear when an artist is making music because they love it, not because they want to be famous.
Those are the kinds of artists that win over a crowd when they’re opening for a bigger band.
Chaepter’s newest album, Dragon of Shame, came out at the end of May, and just like that night at Metro, I found myself pulled in right away.
It’s great. I love this record. It’s beautifully written both lyrically and musically, and just so uniquely theirs. You can hear the thoughtful roots of its creation—not made to satisfy trends or blow up, just made to reflect what the band wanted to be heard.
That authenticity is becoming harder to find.
But bands like Chaepter are the bands that bring me so much hope that our music industry won’t become the Axiom (the ship from WALL-E if you didn’t catch that) of music.
There are bands out there making awesome music, playing awesome shows, and doing it all for the love of doing it. We gotta take care of those bands. And take care of the communities they create.
Chaepter has an absolutely awesome discography to listen to, AND they’ve been hopping around on tour again, so if you have a chance to see them live, do it! I’m so happy we have a band like Chaepter keeping the Chicago music scene real and doing so by playing awesome music.