EDITOR’S NOTE: A previous version of this article incorrectly listed the performance date for Poundgame Addison at The Space. The correct date for this event is Sunday, March 3rd.
Chris Addison, better known by his stage name Poundgame Addison, is a well-traveled hip-hop artist and CEO whose journey will intersect with the Champaign-Urbana music scene when he plays at The Space on March 3rd. I recently interviewed Addison to better understand his perspective as an artist, and to help introduce Central Illinois ears to this blooming star.
“Need more nights like last night, more smiles, less arguments, more memories, more life, more nights, more nights, let’s do it, let’s do it.”
From “More Nights,” the first song on “20 Hours.”
Poundgame Addison is coming to town as a part of his 20 Hours Tour, currently underway and scheduled to hit 18 cities. This is his fourth and biggest tour as a performing artist. He comes to us as a mature artist and a polished product, the driving force and main attraction of Poundgame Music Megastar Entertainment. But before we look forward to meeting this impressive young artist on March 3rd at The Space, let’s rewind, to a time before Addison ever started touring.
Before becoming the realized version of himself he now presents us, music was always a big part of Addison’s life. His uncle introduced him to the music industry at a young age, and further how family connections (especially through church) set a solid musical foundation for him.
“My uncle was signed to Tech N9ne. Just having that access I was around, just being able to talk to him, do goofy stuff, goofy lil raps; it kinda put me in cool with people. And off of that, I was able to travel a couple places, get a couple openings, for people like Snoop Dogg, Waka Flocka, [all from] just being around,” said Addison. “My aunties, they were in the church strong, so that choir, that voice was always with me.”
Poundgame Addison is an artist who has developed himself in large part due to his commitment to seeking out and being open to diverse experiences. This tendency has paid dividends for him as his charisma is the quality that has persistently shone through at every stage of growth in his career; he learned how to navigate wildly different rooms, figuring out what it meant to bring himself to every scenario presented to him.
Today, his experiences come to us as a seemingly orderly constellation of all the places he’s been and different rooms he’s navigated, and they come to us in the form of a polished musical product. Besides learning the industry from his uncle and picking up vocal techniques from his aunts, Addison also learned how to play the drums through his connections within church and family. When you listen to Poundgame Addison’s music, you can hear the influence of his gospel roots in the jubilant passion of his voice.
It was his grandfather who taught him to play the drums; this became Addison’s job in his home church. Drumming in a Black church is hard work that takes plenty of focus and attention; the drummer maintains the beat but must follow the semi-scheduled improvisational riffs conducted by the choir director. For Addison, this was an early initiation into the musician’s world of understanding sound and energy, particularly minding the way music can direct and influence a room.
Included in the gallery of Addison’s childhood experiences were environments that were decidedly less holy. He had some episodes “in the streets” as a youth as well. But drumming in the church, he reflects back, was a very stable and peaceful counterbalance to his less measured movement on the streets.
This lasting influence in the form of drumming lessons is why the passing of his grandfather stands out so prominently and with such catalytic energy in his story. It was 2013, when Addison had just started school at the University of Missouri. He was playing on the college basketball team, imagining a much different life for himself than he lives right now.
This is a time in a young man’s life that tends to be dramatic, rife with coming-of-age experiences. It took Addison just one semester to realize that basketball would not be in his long-term plans as an adult, and while processing the death of his grandfather, he felt supernaturally encouraged to set out more intentionally to make life as a musician.
At this point, he had the musical background with his experiences in the church, and even further with his experiences ghostwriting and performing, working with his uncle in the music industry. Music had been a significant part of his life for a long time, but now he was coming to a point where life required him to be more deliberate about his plans, to decide whether to foreground this audial pastime or to keep it in a hobby’s place.
He talks about a moment of realization that happens here. In a moment of clarity and conviction, one that escapes reliable description with words, his path in life was clarified before him. This is a moment which strongly parallels a bar in a song from the 20 Hours project, developed years later:
“I was downtown when I realized I was HIM | I was born as a pimp | I could never be a simp | They gone forever blame COVID | I could never be him”
From “More Life,” the first track on 20 Hours
That line speaks to a remembrance of one’s greatness. It speaks of long-standing, authentic merits while proclaiming that fleeting crises (such as COVID) are no match for the disposition someone like Addison was blessed with from birth (or from an early age). It’s the sound of someone taking inventory of their life and then kicking themselves for not properly valuing how God’s will (Addison mentioned his relationship with God being very important to him) was being communicated to them, quite clearly, through their experiences. For Addison, taking a cursory look back over his journey should be plenty to remind him.
As we spoke, I suspected that Addison was a young man who had always had a magnetic charisma about him, and I was glad when he confirmed my suspicions by telling me as much, explicitly.
“I’ve always been the goofy guy in class that made everybody feel good, the spare guy in high school, or whatever… and you know I got this certain sound, I be doing certain things that it just sounds different,” explains Addison. “So, I’m just perfecting this throughout these years. And I keep perfecting it and I keep perfecting it, til I get it to a point where I’m like, ‘man, how am I going to spread this?’ So I take the risk. I end up investing, keep investing, more people hopping on board. And we end up building a team off of it.”
This is the same charisma, the same magnetic type of energy that made his first tour (eight cities) such a success. Even though that tour featured smaller rooms and more intimate crowds, he was able to parlay those visits into longterm business relationships, such that his music business team expanded from just him before that first tour to up to 20 members by the end of tour two.
And so, here we are, four tours deep into the journey, ready to meet Mr. Poundgame Addison. He brings with him a distributed network of music teams and a wealth of experiences.
When I listened to 20 Hours, the first thing that caught my attention was the twang in his voice. So resonant and natural were these unique vocal patterns, I was surprised to learn that he is not from a more southern state. When listening to the project, you will actually feel like you’re traveling with him.
He mentions Arizona in “Need It.”
“Tamales” sounds like a Texas track through and through.
In “Tilapia,” we’re “In California today, Ubering around”
“I Can’t Love You” and “Mother’s Day” speak to the transience of relationships made on the road.
And in “20 Hours” the parameters of adventure are set and explored.
The second thing I noticed was something that he confirmed through our conversation. In my endless pursuit to understand artists on very particular, yet generalizable terms, I have donned Addison “An Experience Rapper.” He is someone whose experiences outstrip his years, and he communicates a certain joy and mindfulness about these experiences; a positive attitude centered around appreciation of life and opportunity.
When you listen to 20 Hours, you will hear universal themes touched on in a way only someone as well-traveled and experienced at this early point in their career can reliably deliver. More than just giving you “his perspective” though, he offers multiple perspectives; in fact, on this project he presents himself as a triptych of experience: offering three specific personas for people to ponder. You’ll have to come see the show at The Space to see the dramatic theatrics he has prepared to elucidate this lyrical imagery.
A Midwest product with stories to tell, a platform to tell them on, and abundant talent with which to tell them, Addison’s 20 Hours Tour will blow through C-U on March 3rd. His show will be hosted at The Space, one of Champaign’s newest performance venues, and home to the best burgers in town. He will be given opening support by local hip-hop and R&B artists: Mousepad, DB, Artist Josa, IAmLostTwo, and Billi Fox.
Poundgame Addison with Mousepad, IamLostTwo and Billi Foxx
The Space
Champaign
Su Mar 3rd, 7 p.m.
$10