10 Years after “Breakfast” Chiddy talks to Hot 97

Ten years ago Chiddy Bang released the studio album “Breakfast,” which featured Mind Your Manners, Ray Charles, and many of the groups most popular songs. The Philly-based rapper-producer duo were a part of the early 2010’s wave of new hip-hop talent that swept YouTube and Facebook with high energy visuals and songs. 

Chiddy Bang rose to prominence alongside artists like Big Sean, Wiz Khalifa, Childish Gambino, Casey Veggies, and Mac Miller. From 2009-2012 these artists were producing high tempo, upbeat, genre-twisting, sample heavy songs – and Chiddy Bang mastered that sound.

Since 2012 hip-hop has evolved and adopted many of the lessons learned from artists like Chiddy Bang, but now rappers have traded snare drums for heavy trap drums and samples are far more normalized. 

When “Breakfast” was released in 2012 – Spotify only had 3 million users and about 600,000 paying customers, compared to 365 million users and 172 million paid users in 2022. Chiddy Bang rose to prominence just before streaming music became popular, yet Mind Your Manners has still amassed more than 66 million streams on Spotify. 

It’s been 10 years since the last Chiddy Bang album, but according to Chiddy there is a brand new album coming soon. Hot 97 spoke with Chidera Anamege, better known as Chiddy, about the future of Chiddy Bang, the success of “Breakfast,” becoming independent, and his former collaborator Noah “Xaphoon Jones” Beresin. 

Hot 97’s Jason Peters interviews Chidera Anamege of Chiddy Bang.

JP: Take me back to 10 years ago. What did Breakfast do for you? How did it change your life?

Chiddy: Breakfast was everything in a way, because, here we were two college students that, you know, essentially didn’t even really know each other. Then we met and the first couple of records we make gained success. And that takes us on a whirlwind adventure that leads to us being signed for a record label in the UK. That label was behind us putting out “Breakfast.” They were the ones who essentially believed in us and put us in the studio and wanted us to get that product.

To me, there was a lot of things that I associate with “Breakfast.” It was really the grind kind, we were doing a lot of things to make that record really, really translate. 

I feel like Breakfast is one of the records that, like in the moment, I don’t feel like we knew exactly what we were doing, you know what I mean? I don’t know if it was necessarily received or got its flowers in that moment, but I definitely think like 10 years back looking back at how it’s been received and how that music still lives with people to this day. I think it’s a testament to what we created. We were able to create something special.

JP: Do you have a favorite song off of Breakfast?

Chiddy: Wow. Off of that album, let me see. 

There’s a lot of moments on that record. I mean like sonically, I always get into musicianship. So sonically, I would say like Talking To Myself the way we had like an interlude come, like before the song came on and it was like, it just felt epic. You know what I mean? Like we had the strings on there and it just felt like it felt like a true production. Yeah, I like that record. I like Whatever We Want, the intro slaps. It’s a lot of timeless records on there for sure.

JP: You guys are a part of the last generation of rappers before streaming really came into its own. But Talking To Myself still has more than 11 million streams on Spotify. Do you feel proud of a song like that? Not necessarily the smash hit that Mind Your Manners was, but still getting that kind of play even after ten years.

Chiddy: Oh, for sure. I mean, so many people hit me up all the time about records that aren’t necessarily the ones like, like Opposite Of Adults or Mind Your Manners – the ones that like went crazy, it’s like Dream Chasin’ or Get Up In The Morning off of The Swelly Express.

We kind of like created a whole era within the music and it wasn’t just the studio releases there, there was a mixtape culture behind it as well with projects like Peanut Butter & Swelly.

JP: You guys were kind of a part of a class and your sound was emblematic of the time period. Like you guys, Big Sean, Childish Gambino, what was it about that time period and that sound that resonated with people so heavily that, that worked at the time period.

Chiddy: Well, I can’t really speak for everybody else, but I could speak for our side of things. I could speak for Noah – shout out to Noah AKA, Xaphoon Jones. 

I think we just had an energy and we were kind of tapped into the pulse of you know, this movement that’s already happened – where genres are kind of like blended, infused, and crossed.

It was always more than one genre. It was always more than just one type of music and we always leaned towards blending it.

JP: What was the influence of being signed to an international label rather than an American one? 

Chiddy: Man, I think that was huge. I mean, we always felt like what we had to bring to the table was something different. We always felt like we had a unique spin to what we were doing. So it didn’t feel like the norm, it felt cool to us. Most people want to get signed to a label at home. We were doing something completely different. We got signed on the London Eye. So everything about us was always about, you know, trying to push the culture forward, trying to push the music forward and do something different.

JP: So it’s been 10 years since Breakfast – update us. What have you been up to? What have you been doing? 

Chiddy: I got a lot of stuff that I’ve been working on. I got a lot of stuff coming out. I gotta give a shout out to Noah. You know what I’m saying? That’s my homie, to the fans, you know, I’m not trying to do the spoiler alert, but I will say we may work together in the future again. Cause that’s really one of the good homies of my good friends. 

In terms of me, man, 2022 is about new music. It’s about new energy. I will be releasing an album this year and not only that – they’re gonna get more music from me personally than they’ve ever got. So that’s exciting news right here. I could tell that to you guys straight.

JP: How has it been, being independent?

Chiddy: I’ve been grinding, you know, I’ve been navigating cuz you know, I’m completely independent now like a million percent independent. So you know, these past couple years I’ve been releasing music, releasing one-off songs and stuff, but it’s more so just navigating. Just preparing myself, soaking up game, learning from the sidelines, how I wanna approach releasing music moving forward and how I wanna approach the game. 

JP: Is there anything else that you think people should know?

Chiddy: I gotta show in New York city on March 3rd, it’s an album release show, pull up, come check me out. I’m super excited, man. And I gotta give a shout out man to Russ and Bugus. You know, those individuals have been instrumental in giving me a lot of insight, as far as this digital era and how to proceed.

Russ is a homie of mine. We recorded and done some music back in the day and I’m really cool with his best friend Bugus. So we all in a think tank. You know what I mean? Trying to figure out how to mastermind this shit.

Chiddy Bang will be releasing an album in 2022 and can be seen in New York City at the Mercury Lounge on March 3rd.