Rising from the last remnants of Chicago’s first wave of drill music, BloodHound Q50 has helped take the sound in a new direction. On his 2025 debut album, the evocatively titled Long Live My Brudda He Prolly Kilt Yo Brudda, Q50 paints the Chicago streets in a bloody red, telling tales of taking down opps with a cold, calculated nihilism that honors some of the genre’s forebears, like Lil Durk, G Herbo, and Chief Keef. Despite Long Live My Brudda being his debut full-length, BloodHound’s sound is fully formed, his bars sharp and clever. The Windy City spitter operates by a different code, where being skilled on the mic can get you only so far. Rapping is an escape for BloodHound, who outlines his origin story on the Lil Tjay-assisted “See Red”: “I’m the youngest, but a vet/Old n****s show me my respect/Been had a name before the fame, I got my name from catching hats.”