Long before he was soundtracking stadium tours as the trusted DJ and creative confidant to his childhood friend, turned global superstar, Travis Scott, Chase B was a Houston kid immersed in a culture that stretched from slab parades to space shuttles. “Everything is always kind of centered around NASA… that’s our unique culture,” he tells VIBE on a balmy January afternoon, recalling how that symbolism seeped into his worldview.
Despite being raised in Missouri City, Chase B’s east coast bonafides are iron-clad. Visits with family to New York City during his youth and his time at Howard University broadened his musical tastes beyond southern stylings. It’s the same sensibility that anchors Be Very Afraid, his long-awaited mixtape and most expansive statement to date. More than a forewarning, the project is an open invitation into the Texan’s sonic world, drawing on elements from an array of genres.
“It’s some joints on there for everybody,” Chase B explains. “Some shit is like five years old, some shit is five days old… It’s amazing music.” Be Very Afraid is less a compilation than a time capsule—years of sessions, instincts, and relationships finally sequenced into a cohesive body of work for people to listen to.
That ethos is crystallized in “Satellite,” a collaboration with Don Toliver and SoFaygo that doubles as a visual love letter to modern Houston. “We really directed it ourselves,” Chase says of the run-and-gun shoot. “Just us hanging out for real… just rolled around… going crazy.” The clip reframes a city often reduced to “rodeos and cows,” spotlighting a new guard raised on the legacy of Bun B and Paul Wall but intent on pushing it forward.
Roughly twenty years ago, Houston took the national scene by storm with Swishahouse and other collectives’ syrupy brand of Hip-Hop, marking a watershed moment for the city. Now, decades later, Chase B believes Cactus Jack is at the forefront of a modern H-Town rap renaissance, as Houston’s talent pool is as deep as it’s ever been.
“It’s me, Trav, Don Toliver, Maxo Kream, just everybody,” he says of the city’s leaders of the new school. “Monaleo, Ken the Man, it’s a whole different resurgence of Houston artists right now. As much as we love what they did for us growing up, it’s kind of like you haven’t seen Houston in the way we’re about to show it.”
Griffin Lotz
With platinum plaques, festival stages, and a partnership with Scott that has evolved into a formidable creative enterprise, Chase B’s career stands at a pivotal inflection point. Yet, two things remain clear: his global travels have not allowed him to lose sight of his roots, and he’s far from content with being confined to any box or stratosphere.
VIBE spoke with Chase B about the creation of Be Very Afraid, his bond with Travis Scott, going from a college dropout to one of Hip-Hop’s top curators, and more.
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VIBE: You’ve got your mixtape, Be Very Afraid, on the way. What’s the inspiration behind the title?
Chase B: Be Very Afraid is kind of me stepping out and being like, “All right, y’all might know of me from other spaces, on the stage, or maybe a certain club or whatever, but this is me kind of putting my flag down. This is exactly who Chase B is.” Even just sonically, I feel like it really enunciates who I am and my preferences. I feel like you can hear a lot of me through the music. Obviously, I’m not rapping at all. I would never, but this is really just me personified through music. Be Very Afraid is like foreshadowing. I got a lot more music that’s probably going to come out this year, too. It’s me gearing up for everything I’ve got and just dropping it. “No more holding onto music.” That’s the motto.
How would you describe the mood and vibe of this project?
This mixtape is really progressive. That’s why I wanted to come out with “Satellite” as the first song because you can hear those dance elements, those electronic elements at the beginning, and it switches to this whole trap energy when Faygo’s verse comes in. I wanted that to be the pillar of Be Very Afraid and all the types of shit I’m interested in. You got the house kind of rhythm with dance and an electronic melody in the background. I really feel like you are levitating at certain points.
There are instrumentals I wanted to include, and there’s obviously some hard rap shit. There are some R&B elements with some samples; it’s just a lot. It’s a really open format, and that’s who I am as a DJ. I really wanted to take this opportunity to give that to people. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it really hasn’t been done before, like an open-format kind of genre-less producer project.
When did the process for this project start?
If you want to take it all the way back, to be honest, this shit started in 2018, 2019, or something like that. When my homie Jerry called me up — I still lived in New York at the time — and was like, “Yo, would you ever put that mixtape out? Def Jam called me, and he was asking if you were interested in putting out your own project.” I had never even thought about it before that. I was like, “Yeah, I guess I could.” So in 2018, I signed with Columbia, and we were in the middle of a tour at that time. I didn’t have a single for the longest, and they started calling me like, “Yo, when are you going to deliver all this shit?”
My first song was actually “Mayday” with Young Thug and Sheck [Wes]. That’s when I started building the whole mixtape together. It was a totally different project from what it is now. Most of those songs even came out. “Mayday” went out. We put a song out for me with Kendrick Man and Blood Bat. This is all during COVID. All these [songs] were supposed to be on one project, but rap culture moves so fast that songs would come out on other people’s albums. “Ring Ring” came out, I want to say, in 2023. Mike Caren over at APG [Artist Partner Group] was doing a lot of work with Don, and he just really loved the song.
I signed on with APG to put this mixtape out, and it changed a lot. Even over the last two years, just regarding features. There are 13 songs on Be Very Afraid, and these are the ones I feel are most cohesive, progressive, advanced, and modern-sounding. This specific project probably started two or three years ago to get it all done.
Other than “Satellite,” which three tracks are you most excited for fans to hear and why?
It’s just one joint on there called “Seoul Glow,” which is just like an instrumental that I ended up putting on Be Very Afraid. It’s just really special. I just think it’s like a soundscape. It’s just a perfect palette cleanser to get back into the other genres on the mixtape. That one, shit, “Facts” with Trav and Big Sean is really important to me.
I saw this crazy Cleo Soul sample, and I’m just so grateful she cleared it ’cause I know she does not clear samples for everybody. That one was super special. That’s the R&B components I’m kind of talking about, and Trav and Sean’s verses are super sentimental. It’s just really important. And there’s a song on there called “Off at 7” with Sheck that I’m really excited about.
It’s kind of like a pseudo 2000s kind of R&B/Hip-Hop joint. People don’t really hear shit like this on too many joints. The beat is hard as hell, and super simple like a crazy loop.
Most memorable moment from the making of Be Very Afraid?
I just feel like the whole process of putting out my debut project. This whole situation, I learned a lot from it, especially as far [as] getting all this shit cleared at the same time. Turning in that final tracklist and being like, “Yo, this is exactly what I’m coming with.” I learned so much from it, and I’m just so ready for the next one.
What message or feeling do you hope listeners take away from this project?
I just really want people to feel like, “All right, this is kind of refreshing, and it’s brand new.” This is a DJ-first, producer-second mixtape, so I want other DJs to go out and challenge themselves into making this music and add their branding and sonic stamp. That’s what I really want people to take away: just loving the craft that much to articulate yourself through the music. That’s what I feel this project really did for me.
Cactus Jack artists are known for doing big visuals, from stage sets to music videos. How do you plan to bring this mixtape to life on stage or visually?
It’s crazy ’cause I feel like this is my opportunity to be the only DJ producer to bring that energy to Cactus Jack, have these big Coachella sets instead of the whole conventional rap set, bring these songs to the world, and over to Europe and just play my part when it comes to that.
I had a whole meeting this morning about my visuals for the tour and what we’re going to do this summer. I feel like that angle I come in is bringing that super, loud, crazy energy and having visuals actually do most of the talking ’cause, obviously, I’m not going to be on stage rapping [or] anything like that. The visuals and the music go hand in hand with you as a DJ producer, so I’m getting ready for that.
A lot of people know about Houston, but you’re from Missouri City, Texas. Tell us a little bit about “Mo City” and your upbringing.
I consider “Mo City” the perfect place to grow up. It’s just the perfect blend [of] everything. We had like the crazy white boys and the super gangster ni**as at the same time, and sports were always a huge thing.
It was the perfect high school setting [for] whatever you were trying to get into. If you’re [in] downtown Houston, “Mo City” is probably like 25 minutes away. It’s a little more suburban, but still, you get all that Houston energy and all that type of sh*t. It’s kind of like our sector of Houston, you know? I’m still in touch with most people I grew up with. My mother’s still [there]. She actually just retired and taught at Clear Valley Middle School. I’m always 10-15 minutes away from “Mo City” for real.
Can you speak to the legacy of “Mo City” as far as Texas Hip-Hop?
We had Z-Ro putting on for us when we were growing up. Then, obviously, we’ll try to be at the forefront of being from Missouri City and all that type of shit. But just being from the south side in general, especially with the whole Screw movement and just that sound, it was like you got Michael 5000 Watts from the north side, and then DJ Screw from the south side. So that just kind of always resonated with us. Screw, to me, he’s Top 5 forever just because of the whole culture he brought to the city that we’re from.
How would you describe your musical background?
The thing about my shit is that, especially with putting this mixtape out, it was almost like a backward effect. It wasn’t like me wanting to be in it and then finding a love for it. It’s just my love for it that made me want to be in it, you know what I’m saying?
I’m very much a DJ first, so it’s kind of like me just studying the craft and seeing who came before me, and the importance of all five pillars of Hip-Hop. When I started DJing, I was like, “Hold on, let me go back and really study Wild Style and Krush Groove and see all these people. It had nothing to do with what I was actually doing; I just wanted to be that much immersed in everything Hip-Hop and everything DJ culture, so I went back and studied the fashion, then the graffiti. I just really wanted to know everything. When I started DJing, it just kind of led into, “Oh shit, well, if I can go out and play other people’s music, let me go take this a step further and be like a Clark Kent or a DJ Premier.” I don’t have a musical background. My pops and my mother didn’t play the guitar, sing, or anything like that. It was really just me finding the love, finding my groove, and then taking it from there.
How did you and Travis first link in school?
Our schools were probably five minutes away from each other. [With] Texas High School flag football being so big, it’s like we just kind of always ended up in these certain circles. We always ended up at the same after-parties, at the same restaurants, [or] whatever. I’ve probably known Travis since we were like 11 to 12 years old. We were always just involved with each other and what we were doing. Obviously, he was super involved in the music, [but] I wasn’t at the time. We were just cool. He was just playing me all the sh*t he was making, and the shit just sounded crazy. But we met way before high school and just [grew] super close. Our moms are super close. It’s like a whole thing. It’s way deeper than rap when it comes to me and him. We’ve had this relationship for a long time.
How was the journey from you starting off as a DJ at Howard to linking with Travis?
When I started DJing and everything, I honestly wasn’t that good. I just knew everybody from emceeing or whatever. He [Travis] would send me his music, and I would just go out to the house parties and play it for people. Everybody was fucking with it. It was a whole thing, like, “Who is this?” Trav actually came to Howard one time and was kicking with me in my crib. We ran around to different stores and sh*t, just giving mixtapes out. We were really doing everything guerilla-style way before any album or artist deal got done, or anything like that. We were just stuck in it. When his music started to take off, it wasn’t even a conversation of, “Am I your DJ?” It was kind of like, “Oh shit, we’ve got a show on Thursday.” It was obvious that this is what this shit [is] about to be.
Griffin Lotz
What are the bonds like between the artists, producers, and everybody in Cactus Jack?
Everybody’s on their own in different capacities, and we always pull up on each other on different club hosting and shows or whatever. It’s always been super tight-knit family vibes, especially when going up for Sheck, who was like the first one to join the whole crew. When we got with him, it was his love for basketball that tied us together.
We fuck with him just strictly off of his knowledge for that. He’s well beyond his years. and then with Don [Toliver] coming in just with his energy, just the way he locked in the studio immediately and was just like, “Yo, this is who I am and what I’m about.” His being from Houston ties us together. And then SoFaygo came in. If you meet Faygo, he’s super shy at first, but even now, just seeing him rock on the stage…Wallie the Sensei, being the newest member of the crew, ordered the game. His being that West Coast voice for us is something that we always wanted and needed. I’m just super proud of him and excited for the year he’s about to have and shit. We’re all brothers, for real.
You and the whole Cactus Jack crew are very ill with partnerships and branding. Do you all discuss that actively, and what does that stem from?
To be honest, not too much. Business-wise, Trav’s got his whole stratosphere going on himself. I feel like with me, it was kind of the same thing, especially when it came to the Lids partnerships and all that type of shit. Everybody knew I was the hat guy, [it’s] just kind of like what I do, and it makes sense. Obviously, we run ideas by each other, but it’s moreso after the fact. We all trust each other’s judgment and support each other’s collaborations. I think everybody is just always working, always cooking. You look up, Trav drops Oakley [sunglasses], then I drop a sneaker and a hat. We’re all just working on different things when we’re not in the studio.
You recently partnered with Nike to launch the OG Chase B Jordan, which is a big deal. How did that opportunity come about?
Actually, I’ve been signed to Jordan for the last four or five years as an ambassador. I’m kind of behind the scenes, posting [and] doing sneaker drops. I did a few content pieces for them, like “These are the shoe drops of the year.” I’ve always been around Jordan, and even before that, I’ve been a super-avid sneaker guy. Everybody knows me for that.
With Trav having his own silhouette with the Jumpman Jack, the T-Rex, those were super dope, and that whole process was fire. A couple of years ago, Reggie just kind of hit me like, “Yo, you’re going to do your own colorway of the T-Rex.” We got straight to work on it, like almost immediately. That was like a two-year process of just designing the shoe. It’s just been super special, man. I’m glad everybody received them the way they did; it was a big moment for me. People are respecting the fact that I finally do have my own Jordan. I wanted to just use that to kind of show people my journey through sneakers with the Clark Kent and MF Doom references. The whole experience was fire, and I’m excited to get back to work on that, for real. To go back and cook up.
You’re also in the media space through your Aux Money podcast with Boardroom. How did that come about?
I got this studio out here in Houston, maybe 12 minutes from the crew, and it was just this perfect space. It was an upstairs area and a downstairs area. I actually made most of the beats from my mixtape upstairs. I just looked downstairs like, “This would be a perfect multimedia type of energy down here.” Content is just something I’ve always been super interested in. I love watching interviews and watching just how content ages over time. There are just certain things I think are super important, especially in 2026, to get across for real.
I really wanted to use this to give the homies the floor to come and just talk shit. Aux Money was really just about people’s journey through music and fashion into their lives now, whether they’re an artist or producer, an athlete, or whatever. We’re not talking about gossip on there. It’s all about just giving them the floor and promoting whatever they got going on. I’ve been close with Rich Kleiman for a while now. We just talked about how we could work together, and Boardroom became a part of it.
We had everybody. Kevin Durant was on the show, CJ Stroud was on the show, Babyface Ray, Bun B. All the homies just came talking shit, and we’re going to still keep it going now. It’s just something I really enjoy doing. We’re going to turn into a whole radio station. I got plans for it, for real.
Is the EP with Don Toliver ever coming out?
I don’t think of the EP as a project. I mean, I’ll never say never. I was just thinking this morning, like, “Damn, it’s kind of crazy that we came with ‘Cafeteria’ in 2021 and then we came with ‘Ring Ring’ in 2023 and then ‘Satellite’ in 2025.” Me and him just kind of always agree musically on things like that. We’ll go to the studio, and we’ll make like seven, eight joints, just off the top. We’re always cooking. I don’t think anything as formal as that, but we’re always going to have music that we’re willing to put out and get to the people. We’re just going to stay in the studio in 2026 and keep rocking ni**as over the head.
What’s next for Chase B?
Music, man. 2026 looks like I’m just having a lot of fun with this shit. If one person could take one thing away from this whole process of putting the mixtape together, it’s just how much fun I’m having with it. I don’t feel the pressures of the first week’s [sales] and all that type of shit. I’m not really in it for that; I’m more into putting out what’s authentic to me. There’s just a lot more of my creations to come. We’ve got a ton more coming with Lids, as far as hat designs. I’ve already picked up seven, eight more of those. More sneakers, more merch, more podcast interviews. I really just want to hone in on where I’m from and where I’m at and just kind of get all these ideas out.
And that’s another inspiring thing I want kids to know. No shade to New York or L.A., but you don’t have to live in these places to get your shit off. You can be authentic exactly where you’re at, where you’re from, and use the power of social media. A big goal for me this year is to really just get my imprint out and push Houston culture to the rest of the world. That’s kind of like my goal for 2026. Y’all haven’t even seen what Houston has to offer yet.
