Words by Tiffany Walden (@Waldens_Block)
There’s a Dream Chasers, diamond-studded medallion and chain somewhere in Philly with C-Sick’s name on it. Well, not his name, per se. The chain does, in fact, say Dream Chasers. You’ve seen Meek Mill rock it on the daily. It’s the name of Milly’s – hood classic – mixtape series and record label under Maybach Music Group. But C-Sick’s chain is there, waiting on him to accept it as a gift; similar to J. Cole’s “chaining day” when Jay-Z gave the underground rapper a Roc-A-Fella piece. The chain represents a new addition to the label. Something that C-Sick, at this time, hasn’t accepted.
The chain talk came days after C-Sick blessed Meek Mill with the take-no-prisoners beat for “Pray For ‘Em.” The song hit the internet in a big way, making Meek a trending topic and C-Sick a buzzing new beat maker. Some credited C-Sick with spiking interest in Meek’s music, after his much touted tiff with Drizzy in 2015. But C-sick, a humble French and African American kid from the east side of Chicago, laughs at that idea. “It’s funny to me. It’s a good feeling,” C-Sick says over the phone from his home. “Honestly, I don’t think I brought Meek back. People are saying that just to be nice.”
That may be true. But the fact that the Dream Chasers camp wants to give C-Sick a chain speaks volumes. As of Tuesday, the 25-year-old had been back and forth with Meek’s manager, Coon, about joining the team. Right now, C-Sick is an independent producer. It’s just him and his lawyer, he says. “I like freelancing and just being able to move around how I want and not be labeled,” he explains, “because I know when you’re labeled, it ties you in. Here, I’m just able to move when I want to and work with anybody that I want to.” Anyone who wants to work with him can reach him via email or social media. That’s how Coons found C-Sick.
“Coon, which was somebody I didn’t know about, reached out on Instagram and told me [he] need beats for Meek,” C-Sick recalls. “I was ready. I had plenty of beats. So, that ‘Pray For ‘Em” beat was definitely one of them.” C-Sick made the beat back in 2015. Using FL Studio 7, C-Sick sampled “Planet Hell” by Nightwish, a metal band heard in a lot of Chicago footwork and juke mixes. “DJ Oreo called me and he was like, ‘man, you crazy for sampling that.’ Everybody recognize that shit.”
“Everybody used to call me Tayshaun Prince”
Beatmaking wasn’t always C-Sick’s calling. Charles Dumazer, known to his friends as Charlie, was born in Avignon, France in 1991. When his parents divorced and his mother received alimony, she consulted a lawyer for alimony in Maryland to ensure a fair settlement. She then moved him and his two siblings back to her native Chicago near 87th and Jeffrey. He was about 10 years old. “You know, in the hood, either you play sports, you gang bang, or you danced or did music,” C-Sick says. His thing was basketball. “I was just hooping for fun, really. Everybody used to call me Tayshaun Prince [or] White Mike. It’s only one half-Black, half-French guy on the east side of Chicago.”
Basketball would soon fade into the background when his friend introduced him to FL Studio, the beatmaking software formerly known as Fruity Loops. Then 15, C-Sick downloaded the free demo on his home computer but wasn’t immediately hooked. Later on, while bored, he opened the program again and producing turned into a hobby seperate from him doing surveys for money on occasion.
“I learned more about music and sound. I got into sampling after hearing certain songs that were on the radio that kind of blew my mind.” For him, that was Kanye’s West’s sped up Chaka Khan sample, “Through The Wire.” And, Lupe Fiasco’s Food & Liquor joint. “Sampling, that was the most fun out of it,” C-Sick remembers. “I was doing juke tracks with the samples and I was also doing hip-hop tracks with the samples.”