Recoechi – Dead and Alive (Luke 15:32) feat Hanumankind
The title borrows a line from the parable of the prodigal son, the one about a son who was dead and is alive again, and “Dead and Alive (Luke 15:32)” plays like Recoechi building a song around exactly that idea: a confession, a return, an accounting for everything that happened before either one.
Recoechi grew up on Chicago’s south-east side during the city’s Chief Keef era, before Tupac, Lauryn Hill, Kendrick Lamar and J. Cole gave him another way to think about what music could do. He splits his time between records and organizing, working with Healthy Hood Chi and running EastSide Collection, the group he co-founded with producer C-Sick. His name has circulated through Chicago’s scene since late 2023, picked up by Sway Calloway, Illanoize Radio and the Chicago Reader along the way.
On the song itself, Recoe doesn’t dress any of it up. He lists what happened, plainly, verse after verse: people close to him lost to overdoses and to violence, a mother worried sick, a father who found out too late what his son was carrying. There’s a repeated line that works like a hook without behaving like one, more chant than chorus. Hanumankind’s feature sits inside that same register instead of pulling focus toward itself. I’ve heard plenty of songs try this kind of street-survival account this year, what keeps this one from blurring into the rest is how flatly it’s delivered, no chorus dressed up to make the pain sound good.
Recoechi hasn’t attached this song to an album, just the same Chicago circle of collaborators he’s been building since 2023. I don’t need the bigger picture here to know this one landed something real.
