The Palmer Squares

For this week's Reader music feature, I traveled around the city with Save Money rapper Joey Purp, visiting places that have shaped him and his music. Part of the impulse for that project came from all the writing I've seen from outsiders to Chicago that reduces the city's hip-hop scene to a few bullet points and a handful of easily recognizable names. Though I cover local hip-hop week in and week out, my knowledge will never be complete, and I thought it would be good for me to learn about a local rapper (who's receiving more and more national attention) by listening to him talk about his experiences—otherwise it's distressingly easy to fall into the kind of facile, well-trodden narratives peddled by people who learn about Chicago exclusively from websites based in New York.

Of course, hip-hop history everywhere is polluted with such stereotypes. So many stories about the Chicago scene in the 90s partake of the tired "west side versus south side" trope, but how many mention Uptown native E.C. Illa, who had a long-standing relationship with many of the west-side stars hitting the national hip-hop charts? More recently we've seen an ongoing deluge of writing about drill that clings to the style's breakout in 2012 as a framing device for current Chicago hip-hop, imagining aggressive local street rap as somehow pitted against Chance the Rapper and, to a degree, the rest of Save Money. Artists who don't fit into this sort of narrative often get left out of the "big conversation" about hip-hop, even when they have a commanding presence on their own terms—such as Chicago rappers Acumental and Terminal Knowledge, aka the Palmer Squares.

Acumental and Terminal Knowledge started working together before they began calling themselves the Palmer Squares in 2008—they'd recently moved near the Logan Square park of that name. They've since settled into a giddy, loose-limbed rhythm that feels like they're bouncing bars off each other in real time, though they explained in a 2014 video interview that they rarely write their verses in the same room. Yesterday they released their third full-length, Planet of the Shapes, and by that afternoon it was one of the top 16 best-selling albums in any genre on Bandcamp. The site doesn't release sales numbers, but doing well in its marketplace is hardly small potatoes—per a recent Bandcamp blog post, the site pulls in $4.3 million for artists every month, and users buy roughly 25,000 albums per day.

The Palmer Squares don't fit neatly into any of the pigeonholes perpetuated by folks only passingly familiar with Chicago hip-hop, and that's much to the group's credit. Their wacky wordplay, tongue-twisting verses, and limber instrumentals make them sound more like Native Tongues-style 90s boom-bap than much of what succeeds today. The fifth track on Planet of the Shapes, "K.O.S.," hints at their vision for hip-hop—its title is an acronym for "knowledge over swag." Of course, if you believe them, Acumental and Terminal Knowledge don't listen to much new music anyway—in interviews they seem to they prefer to talk more about George Carlin than about contemporary rappers.

The streak of humor in the Palmer Squares' work could help explain why they don't attract as much press attention as they warrant (I've noticed that rap writers seem allergic to MCs who like to be funny). Not that these guys need to get crammed into a trend piece to reach a big audience—clearly people know how to find them. The Palmer Squares open for Felly at the Portage Theater on Friday. - The Chicago Reader

The Palmer Squares are a pair of hip hoppers hailing from Chicago. They started rapping back in high school as more or less of a joke aimed at showing up the trash rappers their friends listened to. Before long, they were spending their free time uploading cyphers to YouTube. While never losing touch with that side of their craft (they just dropped the Interstate Cypher this week) the duo evolved into something much bigger as evidenced by their back catalogue which includes two EPs, their debut album Finna, and their most recent project, the In Context mixtape. Along the way, they picked up a few fellow wordplay warriors to make up their label Stank Face Records. The group includes emcees Bruce Bayne, Loud Mouth, Rebel Legato, Will is Chillin', and producers Irineo Jaimes and Drew Mantia.

With the release of their sophomore album, Planet of the Shapes, less than a week away, I thought a proper interview was in order. On account of the bantering that often goes on when they interview together, we elected to conduct the interview over Skype. After transcribing that hour long conversation, I had about 12 pages of questions and answers. While some may have taken that, pulled a couple quotes, and put out a flowery prose type interview, I felt that the only way to do it justice was to include the raw back and forth. So, I whittled it down as best I could without losing their distinctive mannerisms and personalities. Not all the quips made the cut, but there is some golden information below about the creative process behind, as well as what we can expect from, the upcoming Planet of the Shapes. Additionally, we get to hear what Term and Acumental think happens when we die and what kind of legacy they hope to leave behind. Planet of the Shapes crash lands on the 25th, before then, read this interview and cop some official merchandise while you still can! For those true fans, check out the dates for their upcoming summer tour here.


How would you feel about someone describing you as the craft beer of rap?

Term: I’m whatever about it. I get it.

Acumental: I guess we are an acquired taste, I guess that’s how I’m seeing the question.

OK-Tho: I meant more quality over quantity. You operate on a smaller scale, you’re not commercial, you put care into each track you release rather than mass produced singles for the public to binge consume.

Acumental: People have said they didn’t like us at first, or that we had grown on them. I think we have a pretty solid track list at this point. This album coming out is three years in the making so it’s not exactly quantity for the most part. We take our time with shit. There’s something unique about it, I don’t know how I’d characterise it. The way I think of craft beer is I like some of them.

Term: Anything that’s not like Miller Light.

Acumental: Yeah, just something fancy.

Term: We’re like a Hamms.

Acumental: You just bought a sixer of Coors.

Term: It was the only thing that was six dollars.

Acumental: Okay, so you just buy whatever’s cheapest.

Term: I just wanted beer to watch the game and eat my own dinner.

Acumental: Well, you did it.

Term: I didn’t want to spend $10.

Acumental: Well then we aren’t the craft beer because we’re charging $10.

Term: We’re like a Rolling Rock.

Acumental: That’s as far up craft beer chain as we’ll go. So just shy of anything good.

How do you guys feel about the stigmatisation of wordplay that seems to be gaining traction within the hip hop community as of late?

Acumental: That’s as old as time, or as old as rap. And rap goes through phases. Rap in the last eight years didn’t sound like the generation prior. I remember when we were in High school like 10 years ago, that’s kind of why we started rapping, it was just crap rappers and that was what we saw was popular amongst our friends. So we were anti that and then that led us to end up rapping and making our own thing out of it.

There’s a lot of people in the new sound that I don’t get, I don’t fuck with. Like whatever happened when Migos blew up and the flow changed “ababa dadada yedadeda.” That became a new style almost and it’s just a new form of the same repetitive shit that’s been going on forever. There’s always going to be artists that are anti that, I’m not trying to put us on a pedestal, but like above that shit lyrically. It ain’t just us, there’s a whole scene. The problem is they spoon feed you the stuff that’s not so thought provoking and you have to search yourself to find something more lyrical or more thought provoking.

Term: I don’t think it’s a conspiracy or nothing. I think it’s just that what the common demands is not conscious or whatever the fuck. And I don’t like speaking as an authority on hip hop and what’s fucking dope and what’s not. The more we got into it about not liking whoever and shit, a lot of the dudes who we thought were whack when we started rapping, we’ve grown more of a liking to or more of an understanding for what’s appealing about them. My taste doesn’t really define what’s hip hop and shit.

Acumental: Just somebody’s marketing game is impressive to me now because I know how hard it is to market yourself. So I might just totally negate somebody’s rap skills but still like them as a rapper because they have the best agent in show business. It's like anything, you don’t feel like you agree with everybody else, just under a broad umbrella. Like fucking Donald Trump, everybody’s on his side but I haven’t met anyone who is, for the most part. There’s gonna be lots of people who are going to buy whoever’s album, like Desiigner’s fucking album, and I won’t, I guess.

If Ben and Jerry’s were to make a Palmer Squares ice cream flavor, what would it be composed of?

Acumental: Pralines and jizz.

How have you evolved as artists since Finna and how does that progression manifest itself in Planet of The Shapes?

Term: I don’t know

Acumental: Think about it man, that’s the whole point of the…

Term: I don’t know particular ways. I just know that both projects tried to step out of our comfort zones and our listener’s comfort zone. A lot of people wanted it to sound Spooky Languagey, very boom bappy shit. With each project, we try something new, something that we’ve never done, or something that’s more contemporary at the moment.

Acumental: Its just kind of like learning how to structure an album or what kind of variety to have. Finna was the first project of ours that had all different producers. Before that, we had Nate Kiz produce one and D.R.O. produced one and I think that’s an interesting element that we broke away from that we’re gonna go back to inevitably.

We’re in this kind of goofy dynamic phase right now. There is definitely a couple different vibes on Planet of the Shapes. It could be slightly jarring as far as just a banger and then more of a summer time jam and then something making a statement in a different cadence or flow than we tried before. We’ve seen comments and, it takes us a while, but we incorporate a lot of that into our feedback. Like people said they wanted to hear Term sing more and there’s a fair amount of Term singing on the album. I don’t know if it’s in the way people were hoping to hear. But that’s something we saw and I think that’s something that’s reflected on the album.

To people that are missing the collaborations with Nate Kiz and really enjoyed and found out about us because of Spooky Language, we’re talking to Nate we’re gonna do stuff in the future. Again, back to quality over quantity we’ve been on some other shit since between Finna and this album.

Term: Since Finna we’ve learned that when you’re making a new project it’s just as important to focus on, in my opinion, appealing to the people that didn’t like the last project for the reasons they didn’t like the last project as it is appealing to the people who did like the last project. It’s not 100% catered for the people who liked the last shit. I think it’s important to expand.

Acumental: Planet of the Shapes, there’s a song very much inspired by Chicago itself but there’s a song inspired by the Chicago drill scene which we are not a part of but is a sound that is representative of where we’re from. We took our take at it. It’s different, I don’t know if it worked or not. We wanted to take a drill beat but flip it and make it about something different. There’s a song with autotune on the album that’s tastefully done, but I don’t know if people are going to fuck with it right out of the gates.

Term: “No Foam In The Cup” was the same sort of idea. It was meant to be something of a sort of parody of something else and that wound up being the most popular track, unfortunately. The whole concept and beat were made by my brother and his friends. They don’t really listen to rap and it’s their kind of mock.

Acumental: But I think it’s important we made that song. We both knew it wasn’t the vibe that we were gonna stick to or that we were representative of. But, we wanted to make it and a lot of people like it and it kills at live shows.

Term: The song that Matt was talking about on the new album that’s sort of influenced by the drill shit is in that realm where it’s not really about the drill shit or making any statement too much. So if anyone that likes that type of music would hear it they’d probably hate us. But I think our people would fucks with it. The approach is more of like, we are being very grammatical and intellectual.

Acumental: Yeah, the theme of the song is education but with a monotonous hook.

Term: Instead of being very monotonous we’re being very intellectual.

Acumental: Mmm very intellectual. Here’s the best way to put it. We put out a mixtape a year ago called In Context. Ever since Finna in 2013 we just started working on our next album. And a year ago we realised we had too many songs. So we split it in half and In Context, in context, is actually like the B-side of Planet of the Shapes. It was all recorded in an effort for the new album but then we recorded too much over three years so we just split it into two projects and sat on our favorites for this album.

What do you think happens when you die?

Acumental: You know I would have just said nothing, the easy answer. I’ve been thinking a lot more about that lately. Not that specifically, but just about things. But, also ignorance is bliss and I try to just not think about that shit where I’ll never find the answer cause I’ll drive myself crazy.

I kind of liked the idea of reincarnation when I found out what that was. And I thought when you die, you know if you have a spirit or a soul or whatever makes people themselves that at that moment it transfers to a birth and then you’re just somebody else now or whatever a butterfly of fucking whatever… But that’s not what I believe. I really think life just keeps going on and then I’m not here anymore. I think I go back into the Earth and feed the planet until it shakes everybody else off like a bad habit.

Term: Physically, we know that’s what we’ll do but… nobody knows breh.

What production and guest verses can we expect to see on Planet of The Shapes?

Acumental: There’s a couple of our Stank Face affiliates, I don’t know how much I want to spoil. I guess, I’ll just tease that there’s one person that we think our fans will really enjoy that we haven’t worked with prior to this. So there’s one collab I don’t know if people are expecting and it’s definitely a really dope feature, no pun intended.

Another big one for us was Psalm One who is a Chicago emcee. We went on tour with her in the fall and that was actually our first real tour as far as driving through the mid-west and you know, gone for a while, hitting like twelve dates. Even prior to that we had been working on this song so that’s just kind of like on our Chicago bucket list. Psalm’s been very cool to us and is somebody we had heard and seen live and had a respect for before we were the Palmer Squares. That’s something cool that’s happened since our last release too, we’ve done a little more networking with new people and got a chance the collab with some different artists. I don’t want to spoil too many names. We are releasing a new video next week.

And release it they did:

You can only do one drug for the rest of your life. Which drug and why?

Acumental: Someone asked us a drug question at a Q & A and I said sugar.

Term: It’s like a chemical.

Acumental: Yeah, but there is an addictive quality, like if you don’t have sugar for a couple weeks you’ll like…

Term: But I wouldn’t classify it as a drug, it’s not fun.

Acumental: So we’re talking more like a “drug.” I think sugar is a drug somehow, people are addicted as fuck to sugar.

Term: I don’t want to say weed cause I already smoke weed every day so that’s boring.

Acumental: I’d probably say weed.

Term: What was the question? I have to do one drug every day?

OK-Tho: You can only do one drug for the rest of your life.

Term: It’s the only drug I can do. I mean is caffeine in there? I like coffee.

Acumental: I’m gonna have to play it logical and give the fucking cliché answer and just go with weed. That’s the one thing, you know, I smoked weed when I was a teenager and shit and I’ll smoke weed now. In a different capacity, it’s different, not so enthusiastic like a high school kid you know? But, I don’t know cause I like to drink especially when we are playing shows. Those nights are usually my have some beers and push it to the limit nights. But if I had to pick forever no, because I know that even without it I’ll be like a rageful psychopath person and I’d have to go with something that would cool me out instead of fire me up and weed does that.

Term: Well, weed isn’t a drug, it’s a plant, so I’m gonna say…

Acumental: Yeah, but that doesn’t change my answer.

Term: It all depends on the stigma of coke or meth, whichever one’s cooler with y’alls.

Acumental: An upper, something to keep you up?

Term: I would say pot or mushrooms or LSD but I’ve had LSD and mushrooms sitting in my drawer for like a year.

Acumental: Yeah that happened to me too. You just turned 25 right? You hit 25 and then it’s just like, “Eh yeah I’ll trip but, so sparingly.” I’m too busy to hallucinate now as I get older. I never have that chunk in my schedule clear and when I do I don’t want to spend it just out of my mind. I got shit to do.

OK-Tho: Yeah, that’s how I feel about edibles, I just don’t have the time.

Acumental: Perfect for a plane ride, though. That’s usually when I’ll eat an edible.

Term: I never eat them, I just hold on to them forever.

Acumental: I don’t get that. What you do is you eat half and then you see how you feel and you eat the other half! That’s what you do when anybody gives you anything shady.

What did a typical day working on the project look like for you guys?

Term: A typical day, we usually try and, if it’s starting something new, we write separately. It varies again on how long it could take but it’s always fun to open up a beat we’ve both been writing to for the first time and really go at it for the first time together when we’ve both been figuring out how we’re going to approach it for a couple months.

Acumental: Kind of lucky too because we do have our studio space with our engineer. Our engineer Drew Mantia is the same engineer who recorded, mixed, and mastered Finna for us so we were working with him ever since. He was a big part of this album too. Drew’s abilities really help us make our ideas come to life. We have our studio spot where Stank Face usually records and Drew is our point person. There are different producers all over the album but Drew is like our third Palmer Square, sight unseen, behind the boards at every session. That’s a noteworthy and crucial element of our sound that a lot people aren’t aware of when they hear the Palmer Squares.

OK-Tho: Is Drew Mantia a member of Stank Face?

Acumental: I would say so. We kind of play this whole Stank Face thing, it has a very loose feeling because we established it. But yes, it’s definitely our crew that we’ve developed over the last few years and Drew’s been along that whole way.

When your children’s children are recounting your greatness to their children, how do you want them to describe you?

Acumental: With each other?

OK-Tho: No, I mean, if you want, but no not necessarily.

Acumental: Hard worker. As dumb as this sounds, and I hate that it’s even coming out of my mouth but, followed their dreams. I used to go to concerts and want to be a person that was on stage before I knew that hip hop was even my outlet. I have another job. I do some of our videos and TPS reports is my thing and outside of that I do a lot of video work. Sometimes I think I should be doing even more of that but I’m not gonna stop working on this Palmer Squares shit. Planet of the Shapes is awesome and I’m so excited people are gonna get to hear it but I still think our best is yet to come. We have more ideas, we’re already working on some stuff that is post Planet.

Term: I still think of us as late bloomers. I don’t really think of that in terms of the music stuff. I come from a musical family, I would like to pass that along or whatever. It’s not so much important, I’m not rapping for my great grandkids. I do have a dad who had a family and was in a band that was never exactly successful but they were known in their genre and shit. But, he felt, having the family and shit, like he never fully did what he wanted to do and never accomplished his shit and never really made it. I wanna do that.

Acumental: Hopefully, it’s overall positive, that’s all. Like even Michael Jackson it’s like “well, I think he might have fucked kids, like but yeah he’s Michael Jackson.” As long as I can make it and there’s no like question of like “Eh but he was kind of a, you know, he had slaves!” be like well what? I don’t want any bad marks on my shit. If I can just be a generally good person who is not a piece of shit to the people around him and can hopefully give back in other ways if I am ever fortunate enough to be able to share any of that. I just don’t want to be a piece of shit.

Term: Making it is not about being a household name. It’s just, I don’t think my dad ever lived off the music, he always had a job while doing it. The goal is for that to be the job. We don’t ask too much, just to be known. Like Run The Jewels level, like hip hop heads know who Run The Jewels is whether they like them or not they know and respect them as a successful hip hop act. It doesn’t really matter if we’re famous. I’ll settle for ICP, cause those dudes have an empire.

Acumental: They have their own thing, people could laugh at ours I wouldn’t give a fuck about that if I had the following. Let them be whoever they are. We probably wouldn’t, we’ve never been super change your image type like paint your face and put in contacts. We walk on stage looking like two losers for the most part and hopefully we find our groove after five minutes like we did in this interview.

Term: We are the Palmer Squares and being square is our gimmick.

Acumental: It’s not our gimmick, though.

Term: Inherently being the shit is never our intention.


If Planet of The Shapes could talk, what would it say?

Acumental: Buy me! Buy me now!

Term:Hello, I’m a CD. It’s all audio so it says a bunch of stuff.

Acumental: It talks for like an hour it just won’t shut up and then after like an hour you can’t get a word out of it. Definitely no one message kind of a hodgepodge of songs that we’ve been working on.

Term: I think if you fuck with us you will fuck with it and if you don’t then you won’t.

Acumental: Yeah I think a lot of people will like some of it and some people will like a lot of it so quote me on that. You can’t please 'em all all the time, but over time everybody will have something they like hopefully, that’s always been our goal. There will be some people that like every song on Shapes and then there will be a lot of people that like half of the album. I personally think the first half of the album to the second half sound kind of a bit, just vibe wise, a little different. Just came out of the gate swinging, some upbeat or, you know, like "Holler" is in the first half of the album. And then some of the tail end is a lot more, what I would consider, classic Palmer Squares. Just more chill beats and craft beer verses.

Term: We’re like the plums of hip hop fruit. I don’t know anyone who is crazy about plums, but I don’t know anyone who hates plums. If you’re deserted on an island and you find out there’s like hella, plum - bushes or trees? - you know, like for you to survive off of, you’re like “alright this is looking up already.”

Acumental: Wouldn’t you prefer to see a pineapple tree though?

Term: Pineapples, especially if you’re on a deserted island, pain in the ass to prepare a pineapple, a plum you just *clitch*. Which speaks to our accessibility.


After the official interview had ended, the following interaction occurred:

Term: Sorry we lacked luster in the philosophical areas. You caught me off guard. When you die, I hope, your energy and your consciousness are like linked, so when your energy, like shoots off into space and then you just soar around space with just a POV but no body and you can just think and sing songs to yourself.

Acumental: See what happened is he’s been thinking about the answer to that after you die question since you asked it twenty minutes ago. Latest answer ever.

Term: And then those who don’t, there’s a mishap in the space transportation, those are ghosts. Those are people whose energy is stuck here. And it’s just like “oooh.”

Acumental: When you think about the galaxy and how small we are and blah blah blah. I’m not looking for the answer, I don’t care if we ever find out, we won’t. But there has gotta be something. Whatever it is, the idea that there is something literally bigger than us it’s like all of the shit up there, wherever, around: space, time, gravity! But no, it’s too big to understand and that’s what keeps you on your toes. Earth is a transitional phase. Stop spending all your life trying to figure it out, you’ll figure it out after.

Term: No you won’t

Acumental: Yeah you will you’ll die and then you’ll figure it out and if you don’t I don’t care cause you’re fucking dead. What about those energies man? They’re gonna figure some shit out. - OK-THO

There's absolutely nothing wrong with being a celebrity musician. Few sane people would deny themselves the opportunity for the fame and fortune that accompanies such recognition if given the chance. But there's something refreshing about artists who don't embody today's TMZ dominated music scene; an intrigue that resonates with fans who are searching for something other than tabloid fodder. Believe it or not, people appreciate the straightforward. They don't always need to be hooked in by an image carefully constructed by a horde of PR industry specialists.

That's one reason why The Palmer Squares are one of the more intriguing up-and-comers in the Hip Hop genre.

Don't pretend like you're ahead of the curve and already familiar with their music. The Palmer Squares are not a household name by any means. But they do have a devoted online following who appreciate that they are just two simple guys who enjoy making (good) music.

"If we have a gimmick or a brand, it's kind of a brand-less average Joe sort of thing," Terminal Knowledge said of his group with partner-in-crime Acumental. "That's what influenced us to get into music originally, that do-it-yourself aspect. There wasn't a lot that was pleasing us on the radio or MTV Jams so we decided to make our own stuff that pleases us."

Terminal Knowledge and Acumental have known one another for roughly 20 years. Their relationship began with elementary school birthday parties, skateboarding sessions and a mutual love for the WWE. As they got into high school, they found their tastes in music coincided as did their verbal styling.

At their core, The Palmer Squares are just two long-time buddies who enjoy rapping. Maybe their growing appeal stems from that simple root.

"We've known each other for a long time and I think that helps whatever is unique about us, whatever it is that people enjoy about us," Acumental said. "It's not like some producer paired up two musicians and said, 'These guys will work well together.'"

"We're besties," Term interjects with a laugh.

It's that friendship that allows them to collaborate so well. They know how to effectively brainstorm together and offer constructive criticism.

Talking with them, it wasn't a surprise to discover that they list George Carlin and Mark Twain as some of their biggest influences. Comb through their lyrics and you'll find that same irreverent sense of humor and sharp wit. But you'll quickly realize that these guys aren't the mainstream's version of what standard rappers are supposed to be. No bling or gangster background. They're just normal guys who spend their free time listening to Hall & Oates and watching "Breaking Bad." But therein lies their appeal; they're outsiders poking fun at the VIPs.

"When you can make a big point in few words, that's impressive," Acumental said of their non-music based inspirations. "Obviously, we're word-smithing. But it's not strictly confined to people who rap as influences. That helps show us the limit of what you can do lyrically, versus what you might be listening to commercially."

These guys are anything but commercial. They surf YouTube for lectures by astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson to help spur creative thought. Term currently sports long stringy hair that seems to parallel his free-flow of consciousness delivery. Ac happily and helpfully signs his emails with his name followed by "The bearded one." Their songs are saturated with off-beat humor. It all helps to create a vibe that is completely their own.

The duo employ layered rhyme schemes and clever punch lines littered with entertaining pop culture references. They've got the intellect, extensive vocabulary and crafty battle rhymes to hang with most of rap's rising stars. Beyond that, their content reveals a remarkably worldly view for two guys from Chicago still in their mid-twenties. In between the bits of hilarity are poignant deconstructions of important issues like conformity and mass media.

"Bottom line is profit, but the market is oversaturated

And these heartless corporate bastards stay homogenizing genres

And it waters my eyes, cause all I got in this life is music

Now I'm likely gonna lose this s--- to some cogs lined up in unison"

- Terminal Knowledge, "Painting Pictures"


None of that is to say that you have to belong to a specific niche to enjoy The Palmer Squares. They're producing songs that appeal to a wide array of music fans. Whether you're looking for a straightforward party jam or something a little deeper and more pensive, they have made a conscious effort to diversify their own output.

"If we only make the songs that we naturally are good at making then it will kind of get monotonous," Acumental said. "We challenge ourselves to make a 'Frat Boy' song or an ignorant drinking jam by bringing our own style to it. Something different. We want to bounce around."

Flying under the radar, as these two do, has its advantages. It enables them to experiment with their music in order to improve as artists and attract new demographics of fans.

"You realize that you're never going to satisfy all the people all the time...But we're not going to stop doing any one thing. We're comfortable making a mistake, or making a song that sucks in comparison to the s--- that we prefer more, if it means that the smaller handful of folks that didn't like any of our other stuff might get one they are interested in."

"I better clean myself up

Plead for help

When I Stringer Bell 'Ya

Like Idris Elba"

-Acumental, "Spit Take"

The funny thing about these two guys, besides their punch lines, is that they don't even consider themselves professional musicians. In fact, they each still have day jobs to pay the bills. Obviously they'd like to focus full-time on music. But for now, they're just trying to continue making a name for themselves and expand their fan base.

So, no, you're not going to get any jewelry and car raps in their upcoming album (tentatively titled) "Planet of the Shapes" and expected to become available later this year or in early 2016. There won't be any money flaunting or high profile beefs from The Palmer Squares. But what you will get is some of the wittiest lyrics, unique perspectives and relatable vibes in all of music. And that's not too bad for a couple of every day guys who spend their time watching "True Detective" and Ken Burns documentaries.

They may not be the big name in music right now, but that doesn't mean they aren't worth listening to. As George Carlin once said, "The status quo sucks." - HNGN

“Rappers shout fire when I spit/ call me inspirational/ yall mistake it though/ my aim is to inspire you to quit.”

This biting first line of The Palmer Squares track, “Jane Addams”, made me stop and take notice during a typically mundane scan through my Facebook newsfeed. After a friend of a friend’s brother posted it to the wall of another obscure acquaintance of mine last June, I became an everyday visitor to the rap duo’s YouTube page for the entire year to follow. (Fun fact: this song is also the reason I got a B instead of a C in Sociology 101 because I knew how to answer the question: “The Hull House was run by which social pioneer?” “Now we got the Hull House rockin’…C) JANE ADDAMS!)

At 22 and 24 years old, Seth and Matt, aka Terminal Knowledge (Term K, Term, TK) and Acumental (Ac), have gained a dedicated following on YouTube and released their second EP, Square Tactics, in December. They are completely self-made, starting out by recording in the house they share near Palmer Square in Chicago (hence their name), to having hundreds of thousands of views and downloads of their music videos and mixtapes. They performed at this year’s SXSW and show no signs of fading into the Youtube abyss–amidst the sea of other independent internet artists, particularly rappers of their age, The Palmer Squares manages to stay true to their quirky and unique sensibility, and maintain an audience that enjoys their authenticity…myself included.

After getting to talk to them via Skype (they were impressively patient with it’s slow connection ), I got to learn more about these two guys who make intelligent, lyrically-inventive and at times absurdly silly hip hop music.

Here are the Top 9 Reasons To Love The Palmer Squares:

#1: They Deal With School and Nagging Parents Too: The pressures of being a young adult can cause some to drop their dreams and settle for a ‘real job.’ But, despite having jobs, classes, and student loans, The Palmer Squares make their art a priority.

“I’m always trying to write for our stuff, get new beats for our next project. That’s always in the foreground,” said Acumental, who edits and creates many of their videos. Parents may not always consider it to be a priority, however.

“My mom used to give me sh*t when we first started, rightfully so, because one, we sucked badly,” he said. “When she overheard us recording in my room she’d say ‘Uh! What is that?!’”

“My parents didn’t even know for the first two years, and they found out from my brother at the dinner table,” Term K said of his family discovering his rap aspirations. But, Term comes from a family of musicians, his dad being a member of infamous punk band, The Effigies, and his two older brothers are also in bands, so it wasn’t too out of the ordinary for him to want to pursue music. “Having side music projects wasn’t a shock or something my parents were against ever.”

Ac, on the other hand, didn’t have as easy a time gaining parental approval off the bat. “She’d say ‘get your f***ing priorities straight, ya can’t be rappin’!’” All the while he is using a shrill mom-voice with a Chicago accent.

I couldn’t help, but see the similarities with my own mother (make the Chicago accent a Maryland one and replace ‘rappin’ with ‘sleepin’ and you’ve got a typical rant in my home). I said, “She’s like ‘what are you doing? You’re interviewing rappers today? Do you have homework?’”

To which Ac responded, “You’re gonna blow up and be a big journalist and then she’ll take it all back.”

Did I mention I like these guys?

Luckily enough, with success does come support, at least in Acumental’s case. “The better we do as the Palmer Squares, my mom is completely on board, she’s actually too over the top fangirl, she calls herself ‘Momumental’.”

“My mom doesn’t do that,” Term joked. Ac does remind his mom he’s still just figuring things out. “I’m like ‘Mom chill the f*** out, I still need to get my priorities straight! I’m not any different.’” Term added, “I think if we still had 3,000 views on our videos they’d be like ‘get a job’”.

#2: Poetry + Performance = The Palmer Squares If I say “rap” to someone who doesn’t listen to it outside of Flo Rida, the words that may initially come to mind are ‘money’, ‘drugs’, and ‘big booty hoes in the club’ (although Ac said, “I like a rap about money and big booty hoes as much as the next guy, I don’t hate it as much as I used to”, to which Term replied, “I listened to an hour of Daft Punk in my room last night”). But, first and foremost, a *rapper is a writer (*good rapper) and to be a rapper does not always mean your favorite part about being one is the performance aspect. There is a different feeling one gets from rocking a stage to writing a verse, and creative people like Term K and Ac are poets first and performers second.

“It just made sense to rap because we were writing rhymes,” Ac said. “When I finish a verse I get that feeling of completion of something that I put a lot of effort into.”

Term also weighed in, “I think there’s a pay off in both of them, but there’s probably a higher pay off just in the writing and creating process. So far we’ve only rocked a few big audiences, it’s really hit or miss…we’ve had shows where we f***in emptied the room. In the studio, we’re already there with an idea that we like, and executing that idea is quite the pay off. We release it and we get feedback, so it’s similar to a good live show and someone telling you ‘that was sick.’”

One of these good live shows in particular happened in LA last summer when TPS visited fellow hip hop artist, Wax, who originally hails from Maryland and now lives and works in Los Angeles. “That right there is equal to any amazing feeling of completing a song. We’ve only had that a few times,” Term recalled.

#3: They’ll Reminisce a Little Bit, and Then They’ll Spit Some Silly Sh*t…hey that rhymed! Rap can allow for an artist to be very personal, Eminem being a prime example. People who haven’t even listened to his music past radio hits, know his daughter’s name is Hailie, his ex-wife’s name is Kim, and “…My Name Is chickachicka Slim Shady”. Rappers have to either reveal bits of their lives, or keep their lyrics vague, but lyrically and poetically expressive. The Palmer Squares do a little bit of both. “It depends on what I’m writing about and what is inspiring me,” said TK. “I usually keep it more vague when I’m just saying silly sh*t.”

A very personal rap of Term’s is one that he wrote about his dog, Shemp, passing away, and other political messages or opinions come through in songs like “The Plot Thickens” or “Blind Moles”: “Sometimes it’s easier in times like that to draw from within and all you got within you is personal experience.”

What I love about the Palmer Squares is their ability to be culturally aware and thought-provoking in one song, and uninhibitedly idiotic in another: “Sometimes its the vagaries and saying something to turn somebody’s head,” says TK.

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#4: They are the PB&J of Rap–1 Sandwich, 2 Flavors There is something about creative collaborations that has always been fascinating to me. I don’t know how much Kanye and Jay – Z really collaborated on Watch the Throne, but groups like Wu Tang or even duos like The Palmer Squares making cohesive pieces of music, as differing artists, must have a method to it. “We have to bounce things off of each other,” Ac said of collaborating with Term. “It’s like ‘I wanna rhyme this but tell me if it’s stupid as hell!’”

“You got two different minds going at two different speeds,” said TK. “Its really hard, in my eyes, for two people to sit down and write verses together. Partner groups where one guy will pick up with the same rhyme scheme as the other left off just amazes me. But when we get in the studio, it’s definitely not the first time we are hearing each other’s verses”

“I think we trust each other,” Ac said. “ We play off an angle, like with “Dis Cap” (a song where Ac rhymed all words with ‘dis’ in them and Term took ‘cap’…definitely recommend you take a listen) and we always run sh*t by each other. I use Term and our group of friends and ask, ‘Is this dumb? Check this out.’ It’s like if a stand-up has a new bit, and I can kind of read the room, and if they’re not feeling it I’m like ‘Arright, never mind, it’s not ready yet, I know it’s lame.’”

#5: If You Can Spit for Over 4 Mins Straight, You Might Forget Where You Live I think their skillful delivery style also sets them apart (and above) their fellow “Youtube rappers”: it is straight to the camera, just them and their lyrics (no dancers and sh*t to distract from what they’re saying), and in one continuous take. Ac recalled how a fan asked them how they memorized their long verses: “I think I’m just getting dumber in every other aspect,” he joked. “Seriously, I was filling out paperwork recently, and I knew State, City, and then it said County, and I had to think about it. I’ve lived in Cook County my whole life! I think I’m getting dumber in regular life.”

There are less impressive rappers they’ve seen that inspired this tactic of one-take deliveries: “We didn’t like seeing someone reading off their phone, and they weren’t even live! They had recorded it, and they were lip syncing to the track while still reading it.” “And he had a Blackberry, so…” Term added as another jab to this anonymous wack rapper. “We thought that’s what could prove our ability as rappers, to spit longer-than-average bars from memory,” said Ac.

#6: No Ego, AND They Kill Youtube Cyphers Term calls themselves “out of their element” as far as the hip hop world because they don’t even primarily listen to rap themselves. “Our fans are a reflection on us in that way because we’ve always had a diverse appreciation of music,” said Ac. “As far as what we’re ‘saying’ I don’t think we’re the only dudes saying it,” TK elaborated. “We came up out of the underground ‘f*** the mainstream’ mentality, that you can be just as good with your buddy, just kickin’ beats in your room.”

“We used to be like ok lets rhyme all 24 bars and turn on the camera and rap. Now we’re thinking more in a musical sense. I think we’ve proved at this point that we can rap. We’re trying to step out the cypher box that we were in for a while. You want to have variation,” Ac said of how they have evolved from their early days.

Youtube rap cyphers, for those who aren’t hip to them, they are addicting to watch so beware if you have a 12 page Psychology paper due by midnight. A producer will make a beat, a rapper will make their own verse to it, and then call out another rapper of their choice, and it continues down a chain of internet hip hop artists. The Duke Westlake Cypher that the P Squares were in also included names like Watsky, Dumbfoundead, Intuition.

#7: They’ll Make You Laugh, But Their Skills Will Make You Cry Their “TPS Reports”, a series of updates on what the boys have been up to, seeing the friendship side of their partnership in these videos is what caused me like them even more. They have a simple, at times ridiculously goofy sense of humor, and you can’t help but laugh out loud at this unlikely comedy duo. Term is the one with the off hand antics and unconstrained energy, whereas Ac delivers the more thoughtful one-liners and a lot of the time looks at his creative counterpart with disbelief and confusion at whatever silliness has just occurred (check out the “Philly Blunt Cypher ).

No doubt, when these guys get down to business, they are not to be messed with. Though their clever wit and comedic awareness is evident in their lyrics and the references within them, they are not the goofs that were mocking slam poets in one “TPS Report”, or dancing to Blink 182 in the kitchen with their friends in another, they are confident, concise, rhyme spitting masters that really make you want to sit down and read a dictionary.

#8: …Sooo, Can We Be Friends?! I think it’s an interviewer’s dream to have the people you’re interviewing do 80% of the talking, elaborate on stories, and have answers to questions you didn’t even have to ask! They are fantastic conversationalists, they made me feel relaxed (imagine my nerves…watching two people almost daily for six months can lend itself to a creeper-like complex pre-interview), and an hour and a half of funny anecdotes and sincere discussions later, I felt as though I had really known them all along. What you see is truly what you get with these guys, in a good way.

#9: “Just Do It” -Term K Despite being suburban 20-somethings with jobs and debt, they rap. And they are good at it. And despite calling themselves ‘squares’, they make a difference in the world of hip hop with their ingenious lyrical content and their unshakable ease at just being themselves. They’re level of originality combined with the undeniable talent they exhibit inspires hopeful creatives like myself because they are successful on their own terms, in their own way, and they are having a great time doing it. - Buster & Ellie