Shasta Matthews and Tierney Reed, aka Klevah Knox and T.R.U.T.H. of Chicago hip-hop duo Mother Nature, look like they’ve walked right out of a music video, even though they’re just hanging out on the two enormous black couches in the corner of their Bronzeville living room. Reed is wearing red pants, a black tee, and an unbuttoned short-sleeve shirt in blocks of red, white, and blue. Matthews, who’s scrolling through menus in NBA 2K, idly trying to duplicate herself in the game’s character creator, has on sea-green snow pants with a black crop top—and even though this particular Sunday in February is just after the worst of the polar vortex, she says the snow pants are “purely for steez purposes.”

Candyland with CDVR, Jordanna, BFFcult, Glitter Moneyyy, Mother Nature, and DJ Evie the Cool Sat 2/23, 9 PM, Rutcorp, candylandchicago.com, $15, 21+

They admired each other’s work, but they were each occupied with their own rap careers. “She was doing things with her collective, I was doing things with my collective, but we were both spearheading both of those collectives,” Matthews explains. “Any time my name was mentioned, it’d be mentioned right next to hers.”

  • Mother Nature make an appearance on this 2018 Matt Muse track.

“It’s dope to combine all those energies and say, ‘If you have a show, I’m coming out to support you. If I’m having something, you coming out to support me,’” Reed says. They met producers and rappers living down the street from their first apartment, including Saint TBG, who worked on their 2016 track “W.O.W.” Since they moved to Bronzeville in fall 2017, their apartment has become a magnet for more, including Murph Watkins (who’d shared the bill with Mother Nature at the Wicker Park Emporium’s Windy Fest that summer) and Jesse 5000k. During Mother Nature’s interview for this story, the duo’s DJ, Cymba Bridges (aka DJ Cymba of Huey Gang), sits at a computer in the corner of the living room wearing headphones, absorbed in his preparations for a DJ competition the coming week. He was living in the neighborhood before he moved into the group’s apartment. “We attract who we’re supposed to,” Matthews says.

“It’s all about navigating that path and creating a new one when it’s not there,” Matthews says. She and Reed are “trying to get the kids to pull out their own genius,” she says, “the things that they might be afraid to express about themselves or the things that they’re like, ‘That’s not cool, ain’t nobody going to rock with that, that’s why they make fun of me for that.’ That’s the type of stuff that we want to get them comfortable with now, so that can go into their artistry.”

“Pronounce it,” Reed challenges.