This week, Herbert “G Herbo” Wright III earned the highest-charting position of his career on the Billboard 200 album chart. The Chicago native’s 25 debuted at #5 with 46,000 first-week units and 61 million on-demand streams.
The 25-year-old rap star formerly known as Lil Herb rose to national prominence from the Chicago Drill scene of the early 2010s. Since that time, the Drill sound has also become a staple of rising New York City rhymers.
“I love what New York did with Drill, the whole movement in general,” G Herbo told Ebro Darden on Apple Music 1’s Rap Life. “They took something and enhanced it.”
The “I Don’t Wanna Die” performer added, “I don’t feel like they took it and tried to like, run with the Chicago style, they made it unique to them, and made it hot and made it fun again. They made it stylish. That’s why I f### with it for real.”
On his 25 studio LP, G Herbo worked with New York-based rappers Lil Tjay on “Cry No More” as well as Rowdy Rebel on “Drill.” Apparently, Herbo has a collaboration with the late Brooklynite Pop Smoke in the vaults as well.
“I mess with Fivio [Foreign], Pop Smoke. Like me and Pop got some unreleased music that’s gonna come out soon hopefully. Me and Fivey got music. I ain’t ever worked with Rowdy before, I’m like you know I need to do something, I need to put him on this right now,” said G Herbo.
A second posthumous Pop Smoke album titled Faith is scheduled to be released on July 16. Victor Victor Worldwide label founder Steven Victor announced the news of the project on Sunday. An official tracklist has not been revealed, as of press time.
25 also includes guest features by Polo G, 21 Savage, The Kid Laroi, Gunna, and G Herbo’s son Yosohn. In addition, Herbo contributed the tracks “All Black” and “Revolutionary” to the Judas and the Black Messiah: The Inspired Album movie soundtrack which was released in February.