Saba (rapper)

Early life

Saba excelled in elementary school and skipped two grades. He began playing piano at age 7, which led to experimentation with beat making software. He began high school at 12 and graduated at 16 with a 3.5 GPA. He attended St. Joseph's in the Chicago suburb, Westchester. Saba would pass out mixtapes in his high school hallways to get his name out there.

At age 16, Saba began performing at YouMedia Center and Young Chicago Authors (YCA) in the Wicker Park neighborhood of Chicago. These after school open mics gave Saba the confidence and charisma he portrays on stages today.

2012-2014: GETCOMFORTable and ComfortZone

In December 2012, Saba shared his first project, GETCOMFORTable. The album is a "catalogue of young Chicago talents who join Saba in trying to make sense of themselves as rising adults in today’s world." The most popular song off of GETCOMFORTable was "Heaux" featuring well-known Chicago rapper, Mick Jenkins.

In 2013, Chance the Rapper and Saba joined forces on Chance the Rapper's album Acid Rap. Saba's verse in the song "Everybody's Something" increased his popularity.

Saba continued rapping in 2013 and began to create his second mixtape, ComfortZone. ComfortZone was released in July 2014. Saba used the album as a window into his life. He describes his surrounding and his optimistic attitude in his verses. The most popular song off ComfortZone was "Burnout" featuring Eryn Allen Kane. Saba not only rapped on all 14 songs but he also produced the majority of them.

2015-present: SpareChange!

Saba contributed to Chance the Rapper and Donnie Trumpet and the Social Experiment's album Surf on the song "SmthnThtIWant". The album was released in May 2015 for free on iTunes.

Saba released an instrumental EP called SpareChange! in 2015. The EP consists of 8 tracks available through Soundcloud. Toward the end of 2015 as well, Saba featured on Chance the Rapper's single "Angels". Chance the Rapper and Saba performed the song "Angels" on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert on Monday, October 26, 2015. Saba's popularity skyrocketed from his Stephen Colbert performance. The duo represented Chicago's radio stations, with sweatshirts reading "107.5 WGCI" and "Power 92.3" for the performance.

In January 2016, Saba released the single "GPS" featuring his father and musical influence, Chandlar. The single was included in his mixtape, Bucket List Project, released on October 27, 2016.

Influences

Saba was influenced by his father, Chicago R&B artist named Chandlar, at a young age. Chandlar would bring Saba to the studio with him to record sounds of soul, R&B and jazz.

Saba credits Lupe Fiasco, Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, and Kanye West as his biggest influence. Bone Thugs-n-Harmony got Saba into rap and made him want to write raps himself.

Saba also was influenced by his older brother and his older brother's friends. His brother is a rapper who goes by Joseph Chilliams and his cousin is a rapper who goes by John Walt. Together, Saba's family and friends, are the backbone of the rap crew Pivot Gang. Pivot Gang is named after the famous scene in Friends where Ross, Rachel, and Chandler move a couch up the stairs and Ross continuously yells, "pivot." To the rap crew it means "to take things one step at a time and to always progress."

Discography