Quelle Chris is a Detroit, MI-based emcee and producer, who’s forthcoming full-length effort Being You Is Great, I Wish I Could Be You More Often is slated for a February 10, 2017 release through Mello Music Group and the album reportedly reveals the Detroit-based emcee and rapper as being among a growing list of self-aware emcees/artists, who have focused on the vacillating waves of self-confidence and self-doubt and the difficult (and seemingly endless) search for balance between the two; and in the case of Quelle Chris’s latest effort and that our lives are most often a complicated and delicate tightrope walk between our better angels and their worst devils — all while featuring guest spots from Roc Mariano, Elzhi, Homeboy Sandman, Denmark Vessey, Jean Grae and Cavalier, along with production assists from MNDSGN, Iman Omari, Chris Keys, Swarvy and The Alchemist.

Being You Is Great’s latest single “Calm Before” is a collaboration with Cavalier and Suzi Analogue that pairs Quelle Chris’ and Cavalier’s easy-going yet thoughtful rhyming over a jazzy sample of twinkling keys, stuttering drum programming and a chopped up and distorted sample of Suzi Analogue’s vocals for the song’s hook that sonically ties the song to a lengthy tradition of weird yet conscious hip-hop that includes A Tribe Called Quest and Shabazz Palaces among others but while subtly giving the song a tense, uneasy feel. After all, the song much like the material on the album focuses on the uneasy balance we attempt between our external self-image and our internal self-image and in a way that feels real and empathetic — all while reminding the listener that even your heroes fuck things up royally and aren’t as confident or as perfect as you think.