Christopher Francis Ries (born March 9, 1983), known professionally as Young Chris, is an American rapper. He rose to fame as one-half of the Philadelphia-based hip hop duo Young Gunz, which he formed with rapper Neef Buck in 2001. That same year, the duo joined the larger Philadelphia-based hip hop group State Property; both acts were signed to Jay-Z's Roc-A-Fella Records by the same time.
Ries is often disambiguated with the rapper YC, who used to perform as "Yung Chris", and is thus sometimes incorrectly credited as the performer of the YC song "Racks."
Music career
Young Gunz
Young Chris and Neef Buck (born Hanif Muhammad) had been friends since they were young boys on the block (Gratz and Wingohocking).[4] On "Takeover", a track from his 2001 album The Blueprint, Jay-Z announced the duo as "Chris & Neef".[5]
In 2001, the duo performed on the State Property soundtrack album.[5] Young Chris and Young Neef also starred in the 2002 titular movie in cameo appearances.[6] Also during this period of their career, Young Chris appeared throughout Dame Dash's Dream Team compilation, and Beanie Sigel's The Reason.[7] The duo performed together on guest appearances for albums like Jay-Z's The Blueprint 2, Freeway's Philadelphia Freeway, State Property's The Chain Gang Vol. 2, and Memphis Bleek's M.A.D.E.; all while recording their album.[8] The Young Gunz scored their first hit with "Can't Stop, Won't Stop", the lead-off single from The Chain Gang Vol. 2 album.[1] Its song and video received major airplay on hip-hop radio, MTV2, and BET and reached No. 14 on the U.S. Billboard 200 chart and #6 on the Billboard Hot Rap Tracks chart.[1]
As early as March 2006, Young Chris thought about recording a solo album. He initially titled it Now or Never.[16] He stated to XXL magazine that he wanted to release a solo album by the end of 2008 and had been "95 percent done" by June 2008.[17] In this article, Young Chris also states that he himself up there with Lil' Wayne and Juelz Santana.[17] Since this time, Chris has taken to the internet to solidify himself as a top solo artist, with his YoungChris.com Social Network, hitting the remix circuit, and his much anticipated "The Network" Mixtape series, hosted by DJ Don Cannon.[18][19]
In December 2010, Young Chris signed with Division1, a label started by songwriter/producer Rico Love, under the Universal Motown umbrella.[3] Love considers Young Chris his flagship artist, working closely with Young Chris on his debut album and pre-album/mixtape.[20] The mixtape, called "The Re-Introduction", was released on November 20, 2010.[21] The aptly titled mixtape gives the spotlight to a newly signed Young Chris, as a solo artist, and also, re-introduces the combination of DJ Drama and Don Cannon, the former "Affiliates" partners, hosting their first mixtape together, in several years.[22]
In late 2013–2014, Young Chris began releasing a slew of freestyles, the latest being a reworking of Wale's "LoveHate Thing", released on May 6.[25] He's currently working on a new studio album titled Alive.
On May 6, 2014, he released a mixtape on Datpiff called Gunna Seazon.[26]
