Keith Cozart (born August 15, 1995), better known by his stage name Chief Keef, is an American rapper from Chicago, Illinois. He has signed a major record deal with Interscope Records, along with 1017 Brick Squad, and was the CEO of his own record label Glory Boyz Entertainment. His debut album Finally Rich was released on December 18, 2012.
Keith Cozart was born in Chicago, Illinois and grew up in the Englewood neighborhood on the city's South Side. He attended Dulles Elementary School and the Banner School, a therapeutic day school. Cozart dropped out of high school at age 15. He began rapping at a very young age, regularly listed as 5, using his mother's karaoke machine and blank tapes to record his music.
While under house arrest for a previous weapons charge, Cozart posted several videos to his YouTube account. The attention he received increased during the short time between the release of several mixtapes and music videos, including "Bang", "3Hunna" and "I Don't Like". After two locally successful mixtapes, "I Don't Like" became a local hit in Chicago. It also caught fellow Chicago rapper Kanye West's attention, and West created a remix of the song with rappers Pusha T, Jadakiss and Big Sean.
In the summer of 2012, Keef was in the middle of a bidding war with many labels to sign him including Young Jeezy's CTE World. He would end up signing with Interscope Records due to them giving him his own label to run in Glory Boyz Entertainment. The deal is worth six million dollars over a three album deal. According to the deal Interscope has the right to pull out of the contract if he doesn't sell 250,000 copies of his debut LP by December 2013. Chief Keef's debut studio album Finally Rich, was released on December 18, 2012. Featured guests on the album included rappers 50 Cent, Wiz Khalifa, Young Jeezy, Rick Ross and his fellow Glory Boyz member Lil Reese.
On March 26, 2013, it was announced that Keef would be a part of XXL Magazine's 2013 Freshman Class. On May 8, 2013, Gucci Mane announced via Twitter that Chief Keef was the newest member of 1017 Brick Squad Records. On his 18th birthday, August 15, 2013, Chief Keef celebrated by releasing the mixtape Bang Part 2. Bang Part 2 was highly anticipated as the first project following his debut album, but ended up disappointing quite a few and received mixed critical responses. On October 12, 2013, he released Almighty Sosa another mixtape, however leading up to release he did not do much promotion for it. Following his October 2013 jail term, he began working on his second studio album and a biopic.