Chris Webby

After building up a sizable base of "ninjas" (what the rapper calls his fans) with giveaway mixtapes stocked full of accessible party raps, Connecticut's Chris Webby finally went aboveground with his debut 2011 EP, There Goes the Neighborhood. Rapping since he was in the sixth grade, Webby caught fire rapping at college keg parties, but after getting kicked out of school, he joined the mixtape game and began releasing a series of tapes that had fans comparing him to Machine Gun Kelly and Mac Miller. Six official mixtapes had already seen the light of day when the There Goes the Neighborhood EP landed in 2011 on the Homegrown Music label. Two years later, Homegrown became the name of his debut EP for his new label, eOne Entertainment. His debut album, Chemically Imbalanced, landed in 2014 with guest appearances from Tech N9ne, Talib Kweli, and Dizzy Wright. Jamo Neat, an EP with producer Sap, was released in 2015, and the mixtape Webster's Laboratory 2 (the sequel to a mixtape from 2011) followed in 2016. In 2017, Webby toured with Justina Valentine, who guested on his single "Weirdo." ~ David Jeffries